GIFT  OF 


/; 


From  the  painting  by  Chris  Jorgenson 

ZOROASTER  FROM  THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  GRAND  CANYON 

Nature's  greatest  example  of  stream  erosion 


<£Dition 


THE    CRITICAL  PERIOD   OF 
AMERICAN  HISTORY 

BY 

JOHN    FISKE 


TO 

MY    DEAR    CLASSMATES, 
FRANCIS    LEE    HIGGINSON 

AND 

CHARLES    CABOT   JACKSON, 

/  DEDICATE    THIS  BOOK 


PREFACE 


THE  principle  of  illustration  followed  in  the  present  work 
is  the  same  that  was  adopted  in  the  case  of  "  The  American 
Revolution,"  to  which  this  is  in  effect  a  third  and  concluding 
volume.  No  illustrations  have  been  admitted,  save  such  as 
seem  to  possess  real  historical  value. 

For  help  of  various  sorts  I  have  especially  to  thank  Mr. 
Wilberforce  Eames,  of  the  Lenox  Library,  in  New  York. 
To  many  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  have  kindly  assisted  me 
I  have  made  specific  acknowledgments  in  my  annotated  list 
of  illustrations. 

The  text  of  this  edition  has  been  carefully  revised,  and  in 
some  places  important  additions  or  changes  have  been  made. 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  18,  1897. 


PREFACE    TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION 


THIS  book  contains  the  substance  of  the  course  of  lec 
tures  given  in  the  Old  South  Meeting-House  in  Boston  in 
December,  1884,  at  the  Washington  University  in  St.  Louis 
in  May,  1885,  and  in  the  theatre  of  the  University  Club  in 
New  York  in  March,  1886.  In  its  present  shape  it  may 
serve  as  a  sketch  of  the  political  history  of  the  United 
States  from  the  end  of  the  Revolutionary  War  to  the 
adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  makes  no  preten 
sions  to  completeness,  either  as  a  summary  of  the  events  of 
that  period  or  as  a  discussion  of  the  political  questions  in 
volved  in  them.  I  have  aimed  especially  at  grouping  facts 
in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  out  and  emphasize  their  causal 
sequence,  and  it  is  accordingly  hoped  that  the  book  may 
prove  useful  to  the  student  of  American  history. 

My  title  was  suggested  by  the  fact  of  Thomas  Paine's 
stopping  the  publication  of  the  "  Crisis,"  on  hearing  the 
news  of  the  treaty  of  1783,  with  the  remark,  "The  times 
that  tried  men's  souls  are  over."  Commenting  upon  this,  on 
page  55  of  the  present  work,  I  observed  that  so  far  from 
the  crisis  being  over  in  1783,  the  next  five  years  were  to  be 
the  most  critical  time  of  all.  I  had  not  then  seen  Mr.  Tres- 
cot's  "  Diplomatic  History  of  the  Administrations  of  Wash 
ington  and  Adams,"  on  page  9  of  which  he  uses  almost  the 
same  words  :  "  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  treaty  of 
peace  secured  the  national  life.  Indeed,  it  would  be  more 
correct  to  say  that  the  most  critical  period  of  the  country's 
history  embraced  the  time  between  1783  and  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  in  1788." 

That   period  was  preeminently  the  turning-point    in    the 


PREFACE    TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION  ix 

development  of  political  society  in  the  western  hemisphere. 
Though  small  in  their  mere  dimensions,  the  events  here 
summarized  were  in  a  remarkable  degree  germinal  events, 
fraught  with  more  tremendous  alternatives  of  future  welfare 
or  misery  for  mankind  than  it  is  easy  for  the  imagination  to 
grasp.  As  we  now  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  that  mighty 
future,  in  the  light  of  which  all  events  of  the  past  are 
clearly  destined  to  seem  dwindled  in  dimensions  and  signifi 
cant  only  in  the  ratio  of  their  potency  as  causes  ;  as  we  dis 
cern  how  large  a  part  of  that  future  must  be  the  outcome  of 
the  creative  work,  for  good  or  ill,  of  men  of  English  speech  ; 
we  are  put  into  the  proper  mood  for  estimating  the  signifi 
cance  of  the  causes  which  determined  a  century  ago  that 
the  continent  of  North  America  should  be  dominated  by  a 
single  powerful  and  pacific  federal  nation  instead  of  being 
parcelled  out  among  forty  or  fifty  small  communities,  wast 
ing  their  strength  and  lowering  their  moral  tone  by  per 
petual  warfare,  like  the  states  of  ancient  Greece,  or  by  per 
petual  preparation  for  warfare,  like  the  nations  of  modern 
Europe.  In  my  book  entitled  "  American  Political  Ideas, 
viewed  from  the  Standpoint  of  Universal  History,"  I  have 
tried  to  indicate  the  pacific  influence  likely  to  be  exerted 
upon  the  world  by  the  creation  and  maintenance  of  such  a 
political  structure  as  our  Federal  Union.  The  present  nar 
rative  may  serve  as  a  commentary  upon  what  I  had  in  mind 
on  page  133  of  that  book,  in  speaking  of  the  work  of  our 
Federal  Convention  as  "  the  finest  specimen  of  construc 
tive  statesmanship  that  the  world  has  ever  seen."  On  such 
a  point  it  is  pleasant  to  find  one's  self  in  accord  with  a 
statesman  so  wise  and  noble  as  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  opin 
ion  is  here  quoted  on  page  240. 

To  some  persons  it  may  seem  as  if  the  years  1861-65 
were  of  more  cardinal  importance  than  the  years  1783-89. 
Our  civil  war  was  indeed  an  event  of  prodigious  magnitude, 
as  measured  by  any  standard  that  history  affords  ;  and 
there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  its  decisiveness.  The  mea 
sure  of  that  decisiveness  is  to  be  found  in  the  completeness 


x  PREFACE    TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION 

of  the  reconciliation  that  has  already,  despite  the  feeble 
wails  of  unscrupulous  place-hunters  and  unteachable  bigots, 
cemented  the  Federal  Union  so  powerfully  that  all  likelihood 
of  its  disruption  may  be  said  to  have  disappeared  forever. 
When  we  consider  this  wonderful  harmony  which  so  soon 
has  followed  the  deadly  struggle,  we  may  well  believe  it  to 
be  the  index  of  such  a  stride  toward  the  ultimate  pacification 
of  mankind  as  was  never  made  before.  But  it  was  the  work 
done  in  the  years  1783-89  that  created  a  federal  nation 
capable  of  enduring  the  storm  and  stress  of  the  years  1861- 
65.  It  was  in  the  earlier  crisis  that  the  pliant  twig  was 
bent  ;  and  as  it  was  bent,  so  has  it  grown  ;  until  it  has 
become  indeed  a  goodly  and  a  sturdy  tree. 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  10,  1888. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    I 

RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN 

PAGB 

Fall  of  Lord  North's  ministry i 

Sympathy  between  British  Whigs  and  the  revolutionary  party  in 

America  ...........  i 

It  weakened  the  Whig  party  in  England 2 

Character  of  Lord  Shelburne  ........         4 

Political  instability  of  the  Rockingham  ministry         .         .         .         6,  7 
Obstacles  in  the  way  of  a  treaty  of  peace       .....         8 

Oswald  talks  with  Franklin  .  .  .  .  .  .  .9-11 

Grenville  has  an  interview  with  Vergennes 12 

Effects  of  Rodney's  victory 14 

Misunderstanding  between  Fox  and  Shelburne  .  .  .  .14 

Fall  of  the  Rockingham  ministry 15 

Shelburne  becomes  prime  minister          .         .         .         .         .         .16 

Defeat  of  the  Spaniards  and  French  at  Gibraltar  .  .  .  17 

French  policy  opposed  to  American  interests  .  .  .  •  .  17 
The  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  Aranda's  prophecy  .  18 

The  Newfoundland  fisheries 20 

Jay  detects  the  schemes  of  Vergennes  .  .  .  .  .  .  21 

And  sends  Dr.  Vaughan  to  visit  Shelburne 21 

John  Adams  arrives  in  Paris  and  joins  with  Jay  in  insisting  upon 

a  separate  negotiation  with  England 21-23 

The  separate  American  treaty,  as  agreed  upon  : 

1.  Boundaries 24 

2.  Fisheries  ;  commercial  intercourse      .....  25 

3.  Private  debts 26 

4.  Compensation  of  loyalists 27-31 

Secret  article  relating  to  the  Yazoo  boundary         .         .         .  31 

Vergennes  does  not  like  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  done        .  32 

On  the  part  of  the  Americans  it  was  a  great  diplomatic  victory     .       32 
Which  the  commissioners  won  by  disregarding  the  instructions 

of  Congress  and  acting  on  their  own  responsibility     ...       34 


xii  CONTENTS 

f 

The  Spanish  treaty  ........  -24 

The  French  treaty 35 

Coalition  of  Fox  with  North 36-41 

They  attack  the  American  treaty  in  Parliament  ....  41 

And  compel  Shelburne  to  resign 41,42 

Which  leaves  England  without  a  government,  while  for  several 

weeks  the  king  is  too  angry  to  appoint  ministers  ...  43 
Until  at  length  he  succumbs  to  the  coalition,  which  presently 

adopts  and  ratifies  the  American  treaty 44 

The  coalition  ministry  is  wrecked  upon  Fox's  India  Bill  .  .  44,  46 
Constitutional  crisis  ends  in  the  overwhelming  victory  of  Pitt  in 

the  elections  of  May,  1784 46,47 

And  this,  although  apparently  a  triumph  for  the  king,  was  really 

a  death-blow  to  his  svstem  of  personal  government         .        .     48,  49 


CHAPTER    II 

THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 

Cessation  of  hostilities  in  America 50 

Departure  of  the  British  troops 52 

.  — Washington  resigns  his  command 53 

—And  goes  home  to  Mount  Vernon        ......  54 

-His  "legacy"  to  the  American  people 55 

Y      The  next  five  years  were  the  most  critical  years  in  American  his 
tory       56 

—Absence  of  a  sentiment  of  union,  and  consequent  danger  of  an- 

archy 56,57 

-'European  statesmen,  whether  hostile  or  friendly,  had  little  faith 

in  the  stability  of  the  Union 58,  59 

False  historic  analogies  ........  60 

Influence  of  railroad  and  telegraph  upon  the  perpetuity  of  the 

Union 62 

Difficulty  of  travelling  a  hundred  years  ago         ....  63 
/    Local  jealousies  and  antipathies,  an  inheritance  from  primeval 

savagery 64 

Conservative  character  of  the  American  Revolution  ...  66 
State  governments  remodelled;  assemblies  continued  from  colo 
nial  times 67 

Origin  of  the  senates  in  the  governor's  council  of  assistants       .  68 

Governors  viewed  with  suspicion     .......  68 

Analogies  with  British  institutions       .         .         .         .         .         .  70 

The  judiciary 7! 

Restrictions  upon  suffrage  ........  72 


CONTENTS  xiii 

Abolition  of  primogeniture,  entails,  and  manorial  privileges  73 

Steps  toward  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade       .         74~77 

Progress  toward  religious  freedom 78,  79 

Church  and  state  in  Virginia  .  ....       80 

Persecution  of  dissenters     .  Si 

Madison  and  the  Religious  Freedom  Act       .  ...       82 

Temporary  overthrow  of  the  church    .  83 

Difficulties  in  regard  to  ordination  ;  the  case  of  Mason  Weems     .       84 
Ordination  of  Samuel  Seabury  by  non-jurors  at  Aberdeen  85 

Francis  Asbury  and  the  Methodists 87 

Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists          ..... 

Roman  Catholics      .........         88, 89 

Except  in  the  instance  of  slavery,  all  the  changes  described  in  this 

chapter  were  favourable  to  the  union  of  the  states      ...      90 
But  while  the  state  governments,  in  all  these  changes,  are  seen 
working  smoothly,  we  have  next  to  observe,  by  contrast,  the 
clumsiness  and  inefficiency  of  the  federal  government     .         .     90,  91 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   LEAGUE   OF   FRIENDSHIP 

The  several  states  have  never  enjoyed  complete  sovereignty          .       92 
But  in  the  very  act  of  severing  their  connection  with  Great  Britain, 

they  entered  into  some  sort  of  union 94 

Anomalous  character  of  the  Continental  Congress      .         .  95  _ 

The  articles  of  confederation ;  they  sought  to  establish  a  "  league 

of  friendship "  between  the  states ^6-100    . 

But  failed  to  create  a  federal   government   endowed   with  real 

sovereignty  .........      101-104  - 

Military  weakness  of  the  government  ....          104-106 

Extreme  difficulty  of  obtaining  a  revenue        ....      108,  109 

Congress,  being  unable  to  pay  the  army,  was  afraid  of  it    .         .         109^- 
Supposed  scheme  for  making  Washington  king     .  .         .     H2_ 

Greene's  experience  in  South  Carolina        .         .         .         .         .         113 

Gates's  staff  officers  and  the  Newburgh  address    ....     114 — 

The  danger  averted  by  Washington 115,  116— - 

Congress  driven  from  Philadelphia  by  mutinous  soldiers        .         .118 
The  Commutation  Act  denounced  in  New  England  .      .  .         .         119 

Order  of  the  Cincinnati 120-124- 

Reasons  for  the  dread  which  it  inspired 125 

Congress  finds  itself  unable  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the 

treaty  with  Great  Britain .         126  - 

Persecution  of  the  loyalists 127,128 


xiv  CONTENTS 

It  was  especially  severe  in  New  York  .  .  .  .  .  128 
Trespass  Act  of  1784  directed  against  the  loyalists  .  .  .  130 
Character  and  early  career  of  Alexander  Hamilton  .  .  130-132 

The  case  of  Rutgers  v.  Waddington 132-134 

Wholesale  emigration  of  Tories          ......         135 

Congress  unable  to  enforce  payment  of  debts  to  British  creditors     137 
England  retaliates  by  refusing  to  surrender  the  fortresses  on  the 
northwestern  frontier 137 


CHAPTER    IV 

DRIFTING   TOWARD   ANARCHY 

The  barbarous  superstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages  concerning  trade 
were  still  rife  in  the  eighteenth  century 139 

The  old  theory  of  the  uses  of  a  colony        .         .         .         .         .         139 

Pitt's  unsuccessful  attempt  to  secure  free  trade  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States          ......         141 

Ship-building  in  New  England 142 

British  navigation  acts  and  orders   in  council  directed  against 
American  commerce    .........     142 

John  Adams  tried  in  vain  to  negotiate  a  commercial  treaty  with 
Great  Britain 143^  144 

And  could  see  no  escape  from  the  difficulties  except  in  systematic 
reprisal I45 

But  any  such  reprisal  was  impracticable,  for  the  several  states  im 
posed  conflicting  duties 146 

Attempts  to  give   Congress  the  power  of  regulating  commerce 
were  unsuccessful 147,  148 

And  the  several  states  began  to  make  commercial  war  upon  one 
'another "        .         .     149 

Attempts  of  New  York  to  oppress  New  Jersey  and  Connecticut         1 50 

Retaliatory  measures  of  the  two  latter  states  .         .         .         .152 

The  quarrel  between  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania  over  the  pos 
session  of  the  valley  of  Wyoming    152-156 

The  quarrel  between  New  York  and  New  Hampshire  over  the 

possession  of  the  Green  Mountains 157,158 

*•  Failure  of  American  diplomacy  because  European  states  could 
not  tell   whether  they  were   dealing  with  one  nation  or  with 

thirteen  I(5O?  T6r 

*  Failure  of  American  credit ;  John  Adams  begging  in  Holland    161,  162 

L  The  Barbary  pirates     . ^ 

1  American  citizens  kidnapped  and  sold  into  slavery         .         .         .166 

Lord  Sheffield's  outrageous  pamphlet          ...  166 


CONTENTS  xv 

Tripoli's  demand  for  blackmail        .        .         .        .        .        .        .167 

Congress  unable  to  protect  American  citizens     .         .        .         .         167 

Financial  distress  after  the  Revolutionary  War      .         .        .      168-171 

State  of  the  coinage 172 

Cost  of  the  war  in  money 1 74 

Robert  Morris  and  his  immense  services     .         .         .         .         .         174 

The  craze  for  paper  money 177 

Agitation  in  the  southern  and  middle  states        .         .         .          178-182 

Distress  in  New  England 182 

Imprisonment  for  debt 185 

Rag-money  victorious  in  Rhode  Island;  the  "Know  Ye"  mea 
sures     186-190 

Rag-money    defeated    in    Massachusetts ;    the    Shays   insurrec 
tion       ...........   ^190-196 

The  insurrection  suppressed  by  state  troops        ....         197. 

Conduct  of  the  neighbouring  states 198 

The  rebels  pardoned    .........         200 

Timidity  of  Congress 201,  202 


CHAPTER   V 

GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY 

Creation  of  a  national  domain  beyond  the  Alleghanies  .  .  203,  204 

Conflicting  claims  to  the  western  territory 204 

Claims  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  .....  205 

Claims  of  New  York 205 

Virginia's  claims 206 

Maryland's  novel  and  beneficent  suggestion  .  .  .  206, 207 
The  several  states  yield  their  claims  in  favour  of  the  United 

States 207, 208 

Magnanimity  of  Virginia 209 

Jefferson  proposes  a  scheme  of  government  for  the  northwestern 

territory  ...........  210 

Names  of  the  proposed  ten  states 212 

Jefferson  wishes  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  national  domain  .  .212 

North  Carolina's  cession  of  western  lands 213 

John  Sevier  and  the  state  of  Franklin 214,215 

The  northwestern  territory 216 

Origin  of  the  Ohio  company 217 

The  Ordinance  of  1787         .......          218-221 

Theory  of  folk-land  upon  which  the  ordinance  was  based  .  .  222 
Spain,  hearing  of  the  secret  article  in  the  treaty  of  1783,  loses  her 

temper  and  threatens  to  shut  up  the  Mississippi  River  .          223-225 


xvi  CONTENTS 

—  Gardoqui  and  Jay 225 

Threats  of  secession  in  Kentucky  and  New  England          .         .         226 
Washington's  views  on  the  political  importance  of  canals  between 
east  and  west  ......         ....        228 

-His  far-sighted  genius  and  self-devotion 229 

Maryland  confers  with  Virginia  regarding  the  navigation  of  the 
Potomac       ...........     229 

The  Madison-Tyler  motion  in  the  Virginia  legislature        .         230,  231 
--Convention  at  Annapolis,  Sept.  n,  1786        .....     232 

"Hamilton's  address  calling  for  a  convention  at  Philadelphia      232,  233 
The  impost  amendment  defeated  by  the  action  of  New  York ;  last 
ounce  upon  the  camel's  back  ......          235-237 

^"Sudden  changes  in  popular  sentiment 238 

The  Federal  Convention  meets  at  Philadelphia,  May,  1787        239,  240 
Mr.  Gladstone's  opinion  of  the  work  of  the  convention          .         .     240 

The  men  who  were  assembled  there 241-243 

Character  of  James  Madison 244,  245 

The  other  leading  members         .......         246 

—-Washington  chosen  president  of  the  convention     ....     247 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION 

Why  the  proceedings  of  the  convention  were  kept  secret  for  so 

many  years 249 

Difficulty  of  the  problem  to  be  solved         ....         249,  250 
— Symptoms  of  cowardice  repressed  by  Washington's  impassioned 

speech 250 

""The  root  of  all  the  difficulties;  the  edicts  of  the  federal  govern 
ment  had  operated  only  upon  states,  not  upon  individuals,  and 
therefore  could  not  be  enforced  without  danger  of  war  .          251-254 
"  The  Virginia  plan,  of  which  Madison  was  the  chief  author,  of 
fered  a  radical  cure .     254, 255 

And  was  felt  to  be  revolutionary  in  its  character          .         .         256-258 
Fundamental  features  of  the  Virginia  plan      ....     258,  260 

How  it  was  at  first  received         .......         260 

/The  House  of  Representatives  must  be  directly  elected  by  the 

people 261,262 

-—Question  as  to  the  representation  of  states  brings  out  the  antag 
onism  between  large  and  small  states 262 

—William  Paterson  presents  the  New  Jersey  plan ;  not  a  radical 

cure,  but  a  feeble  palliative 263,  264 

--Struggle  between  the  Virginia  and  New  Jersey  plans          .         264-267 


CONTENTS  xvii 

The  Connecticut  compromise,  according  to  which  the  national 
principle  is  to  prevail  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  the 
federal  principle  in  the  Senate,  meets  at  first  with  fierce  oppo 
sition  270,271 

But  is  at  length  adopted       .  272 

And  proves  a  decisive  victory  for  Madison  and  his  methods 
A  few  irreconcilable  members  go  home  in  dudgeon        .         .      273, 
But  the  small  states,  having  been  propitiated,  are  suddenly  con 
verted  to  Federalism,  and  make  the  victory  complete          .         .     274  ___ 

Vague  dread  of  the  future  west 275 

The  struggle  between  pro-slavery  and  anti-slavery  parties  began 

in  the  convention,  and  was  quieted  by  two  compromises    .         .     276  — 
Should  representation  be  proportioned  to  wealth  or  to  popula 
tion?     276  - 

Were  slaves  to  be  reckoned  as  persons  or  as  chattels  ?       .         .         277  — 
Attitude  of  the  Virginia  statesmen  .     278  _' 

It  was  absolutely  necessary  to  satisfy  South  Carolina         .          279,  280 — 
The  three  fifths  compromise,  suggested  by  Madison,  was  a  gen 
uine  English  solution,  if  ever  there  was  one        ....     280  — 
There  was  neither  rhyme  nor  reason  in  it,  but  for  all  that,  it  was 

the  best  solution  attainable  at  the  time 281 

The    next   compromise  was   between  New   England   and   South 
Carolina  as  to  the  foreign  slave-trade  and  the  power  of  the  fed 
eral  government  over  commerce  .......     282 

George  Mason  calls  the  slave-trade  an  "  infernal  traffic  "   .         .         284 
And  the  compromise  offends  and  alarms  Virginia  ....     284  — 

Belief  in  the  moribund  condition  of  slavery         ....         288 

The  foundations  of  the  Constitution  were  laid  in  compromise        .     289— 

Powers  granted  to  the  federal  government 290  _ 

Use  of  federal  troops  in  suppressing  insurrections          .         .         .     290 

Various  federal  powers 292, 293 

Provision  for  a  federal  city  under  federal  jurisdiction    .         .         .     293 
The  Federal  Congress  might  compel  the  attendance  of  members       293 

Powers  denied  to  the  several  states 294 

Should  the  federal  government  be  allowed  to  make  its  promissory 
notes  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts?  powerful  speech  of 

Gouverneur  Morris 294 

Emphatic  and  unmistakable  condemnation  of  paper  money  by  all 

the  leading  delegates 295 

The  convention  refused  to  grant  to  the  federal  government  the 
power  of  issuing  inconvertible  paper,  but  did  not  think  an  ex 
press  prohibition  necessary 296 

If  they  could  have  foreseen  some  recent  judgments  of  the  su 
preme  court,  they  would  doubtless  have  made  the  prohibition 
explicit  and  absolute 297 


xviii  CONTENTS 

Debates  as  to  the  federal  executive         ......     298 

Sherman's  suggestion  as  to  the  true  relation  of  the  executive  to 

the  legislature 298 

There  was  to  be  a  single  chief  magistrate,  but  how  should  he  be 
chosen  ?..........         .     299 

Objections  to  an  election  by  Congress         .....         300 

^Ellsworth  and  King  suggest  the  device  of  an  electoral  college, 

which  is  at  first  rejected       ........     300 

-But  afterwards  adopted 303 

Provisions  for  an  election  by  Congress  in  the  case  of  a  failure  of 
choice  by  the  electoral  college     .......     303 

Provisions  for  counting  the  electoral  votes          ....         304 

It  was  not  intended  to  leave  anything  to  be  decided  by  the  presi 
dent  of  the  Senate        .........     305 

— The  convention  foresaw  imaginary  dangers,  but  not  the  real  ones     306 
Hamilton's  opinion  of  the  electoral  scheme         .         .         .          307,  308 

How  it  has  actually  worked 308 

In  this  part  of  its  work  the  convention  tried  to  copy  from  the 
British  Constitution     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .310 

In  which  they  supposed  the  legislative  and  executive  departments 

to  be  distinct  and  separate 310 

Here  they  were  misled  by  Montesquieu  and  Blackstone     .         .         311 
What   our  government  would  be  if  it  were  really  like  that  of 

Great  Britain 312-315 

In  the  British  government  the  executive  department  is  not  sepa 
rated  from  the  legislative 315 

Circumstances  which  obscured  the  true  aspect  of  the  case  a  cen 
tury  ago 316-318 

Veto  power  and  independence  of  the  executive      .         .         .      318-320 
The  American  cabinet  is  analogous,  not  to  the  British  cabinet, 
but  to  the  privy  council    ........         320 

The  federal  judiciary,  and  its  remarkable  character       .         .     321,322 

Provisions  for  amending  the  Constitution 323 

The  document  is  signed  by  all  but  three  of  the  delegates  present      324 
And  the  convention  breaks  up     .......         324 

With  a  pleasant  remark  from  Franklin   ......     325 


CONTENTS  xix 

CHAPTER  VII 

CROWNING  THE   WORK 

Franklin  lays  the  Constitution  before  the  legislature  of  Pennsyl 
vania    327 

It  is  submitted  to  Congress,  which  refers  it  to  the  legislatures  of 
the  thirteen  states,  to  be  ratified  or  rejected  by  the  people  in 
conventions       ..........         327 

First  American  parties,  Federalists  and  Antifederalists          .         .     329 

The  contest  in  Pennsylvania 329, 330 

How  to  make  a  quorum           ...                                     .  332 
A  war  of  pamphlets  and  newspaper  squibs                                     332,  333 
Ending  in  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution  by  Delaware,  Penn 
sylvania,  and  New  Jersey 334 

Rejoicings  and  mutterings       ...  •         •         •     335 

Georgia  and  Connecticut  ratify 336 

The  outlook  in  Massachusetts 336,  338 

The  Massachusetts  convention  meets 339 

And  overhauls  the  Constitution  clause  by  clause  ....  341 
On  the  subject  of  an  army  Mr.  Nason  waxes  eloquent  .  .  342 

The  clergymen  oppose  a  religious  test 342 

And  Rev.  Samuel  West  argues  on  the  assumption  that  all  men 
are  not  totally  depraved       ........     343 

Feeling  of  distrust  in  the  mountain  districts        ....         344 

Timely  speech  of  a  Berkshire  farmer 344,  345 

Attitude  of  Samuel  Adams 346,  348 

Meeting  of  mechanics  at  the  Green  Dragon   .....     348 

Charges  of  bribery 349 

Washington's  fruitful  suggestion 35C 

Massachusetts  ratifies,  but  proposes  amendments       .         .         .         35 I -— 
The  Long  Lane  has  a  turning  and  becomes  Federal  Street   .         .     354 
New  Hampshire  hesitates,  but  Maryland  ratifies,  and  all  eyes  are 
turned  upon  South  Carolina     ......          354,  355 

Objections  of  Rawlins  Lowndes  answered  by  Cotesworth  Pinck- 

ney 356 

South  Carolina  ratifies  the  Constitution 357 

Important  effect  upon  Virginia,  where  thoughts  of  a  southern 

confederacy  had  been  entertained 357,  358 

Madison  and  Marshall  prevail  in  the  Virginia  convention,  and  it 

ratifies  the  Constitution 360 

New  Hampshire  had  ratified  four  days  before  ...»  361 
Rejoicings  at  Philadelphia;  riots  at  Providence  and  Albany  .  362 
The  struggle  in  New  York  ........  362  * 


xx  CONTENTS 

Origin  of  the  "  Federalist  " 364.  365 

Hamilton  wins  the  victory,  and  New  York  ratifies          .         .         .  368 
All  serious  anxiety  is  now  at  an  end  ;  the  laggard  states.  North 

Carolina  and  Rhode  Island 369 

^  First  presidential  election,  January  7,  1789;  Washington  is  unani 
mously  chosen 370 

Why  Samuel  Adams  was  not  selected  for  vice-president     .         .  371 

Selection  of  John  Adams         ........  372 

Washington's  journey  to  New  York,  April  16-23  373 
His  inauguration      .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -374 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 377 

MEMBERS  OF  THE  FEDERAL  CONVENTION          .        .    '    .        .  383 

PRESIDENTS  OF  THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS       .        .        .  386 

INDEX 387 


NOTES   ON   THE   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


All  the  maps,  except  where  otherwise  specified,  have  been  made  from  my  drawings 
or  Tinder  my  direction. 

The  abbreviation  (Emmet :  Lenox)  signifies  that  the  illustration  is  taken  from  the 
collection  of  Dr.  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  -which  is  now  in  the  Lenox  Library,  New 
York. 

JAMES  MADISON  {photogravure) Frontispiece 

From  the  original  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart,  at  Bowdoin  College.  Auto 
graph  from  Lenox  Library,  New  York. 

GUY  VAUX  :  OVERTHROW  OF  LORD  NORTH'S  MINISTRY  ...      3 

From  Caricatures  of  James  Gillray,  Political  Series,  vol.  i.,  one  of  the 
books  of  my  old  friend,  the  late  Samuel  Jones  Tilden,  now  in  Lenox  Library. 

In  the  foreground  the  jackass,  George  III.,  sits  dozing,  crowned  with  a 
dunce-cap,  while  above  him  hangs  the  riband  of  the  Garter,  containing  a 
crown  borne  on  a  donkey's  back.  The  sceptre  is  in  a  bag  lying  on  the  floor, 
and  under  the  throne  is  a  keg  marked  Gunpowder.  Charles  Fox  as  Guy 
Fawkes  (=  Vaux  =  Fox),  with  vulpine  face,  is  coming  through  the  door, 
lantern  in  hand,  while  on  his  right  the  Duke  of  Richmond  carries  a  fagot  of 
sticks,  and  on  his  left  the  Earl  of  Shelburne  brings  in  another  keg  of  powder. 
Between  Shelburne  and  Fox  we  see  the  face  of  Dunning,  afterward  Lord 
Ashburton  ;  while  behind  Dunning  appears  Edmund  Burke  in  spectacles. 
The  wall  of  the  anteroom  is  decorated  with  a  figure  of  Catiline. 

EARL  OF  SHELBURNE 5 

From  a  mezzotint  in  the  Letters  of  Jrinius,  London,  1801.  Autograph 
from  Correspondence  of  the  Earl  of  Chatham,  vol.  iii. 

CHARLES  JAMES  Fox 7 

From  National  Portraits,  vol.  v.,  after  an  original  painting  by  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  in  the  possession  of  Lord  Denman.  Autograph  from  MS.  collec 
tion  in  Library  of  Boston  Athenaeum. 

THOMAS  GRENVILLE 11 

From  National  Portraits,  vol.  vi.,  after  an  original  painting  by  John 
Hopner,  in  the  possession  of  Hon.  G.  M.  Fortescue.  Autograph  from  the 
same  book. 

RODNEY  TRIUMPHANT 13 

From  the  Gillray  Caricatures,  Lenox  Library. 

I  have  never  seen  any  description  of  this  very  interesting  satirical  print. 
Wright,  in  his  learned  work  on  the  caricature  history  of  the  House  of  Han- 


xxii  NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

over,  makes  no  mention  of  it,  though  he  describes  others  of  less  importance 
relating  to  the  same  event.  Much  history  is  concentrated  in  the  picture. 

The  battle  of  Sainte-Marie-Galante  (or  of  the  Saints),  April  12,  1782,  is 
called  by  Captain  Mahan  "  the  greatest  naval  battle  in  its  results  that  had 
been  fought  in  a  century."  (Influence  of  Sea  Power  on  History,  p.  485.) 
The  victor,  Sir  George  Rodney,  was  a  Tory  and  had  been  appointed  to  his 
command  by  Lord  North's  ministry  ;  he  was  personally  objectionable  to  the 
Whigs,  who  condemned  him  severely  (and  in  my  opinion  justly)  for  his  high 
handed  behaviour  at  St.  Eustatius,  Feb.  3,  1781.  (See  my  American  Revo 
lution,  illustrated  edition,  vol.  ii.  p.  163.)  On  the  other  hand,  a  favourite 
Whig  admiral  was  Hon.  Augustus  Keppel,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Albemarle. 
On  July  27, 1778,  Admiral  Keppel  chased  a  French  fleet  off  Ushant  but  failed 
to  bring  on  a  decisive  action,  though  some  broadsides  were  exchanged.  A 
Tory  subordinate,  Vice-Admiral  Sir  Hugh  Palliser,  charged  Keppel  with  neg 
lect  of  duty,  and  recriminations  went  on  until  both  Keppel  and  Palliser  were 
tried  by  court-martial  and  both  were  honourably  acquitted.  As  the  net  result, 
Keppel  was  petted  by  the  Whig  statesmen,  idolized  by  the  London  populace, 
ridiculed  by  the  Tories,  and  furiously  hated  by  the  King.  He  became  a 
member  of  Lord  Rockingham's  cabinet  as  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  March 
30,  1782,  and  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Viscount  Keppel,  April  27.  On 
May  i,  before  the  news  of  Rodney's  great  victory  had  reached  England,  the 
ministry  sent  Admiral  Pigot  to  the  West  Indies  to  supersede  him,  with  a 
cold  and  almost  insulting  letter  of  recall.  On  May  18  came  the  news  of  the 
victory,  and  Lord  North  in  Parliament  said  to  the  ministers  :  "  You  have 
conquered,  but  you  have  conquered  with  the  arms  of  Philip ! " 

In  the  foreground  of  the  picture  Rodney  is  treading  upon  the  French  flag, 
while  Admiral  de  Grasse  is  surrendering  his  sword.  Behind  Grasse  stand 
a  party  of  woe-begone  Frenchmen ;  behind  Rodney  are  his  hilarious  jack 
tars  bringing  ashore  boxes  of  louis  d'or,  etc.,  while  a  boat  in  the  near  back 
ground  shows  the  British  ensign  floating  .above  the  fleurs-de-lis.  Over  Rod 
ney's  head  a  viscount's  coronet  is  descending  "  from  Jove  "  the  giver  of  vic 
tory.  A  dilapidated  building  on  the  left  does  duty  for  the  Admiralty  office, 
and  on  its  front  is  a  hatchment,  the  symbol  of  mourning,  enclosing  an  in 
verted  ship  and  rusty  axe,  and  bearing  the  inscription  "  27th  July,  Gloria," 
referring  to  the  date  when  Keppel's  glory  died  off  Ushant.  Before  the  build 
ing  Lord  North  and  the  Earl  of  Sandwich,  who  had  been  his  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  are  walking  jubilant;  North  exclaims,  "  Ha,  ha^ha,  behold  Augus 
tus  the  27th  !  "  while  Sandwich  adds, "  Ha,  ha,  ha,  new  measures  —  send  a  pig 
[Pigot]  to  supersede  a  Lion  !  "  In  the  left  foreground  stand  a  very  disgusted 
trio.  Fox  exclaims,  "  Damn  the  French  for  coming  in  his  way,  say  I,"  and 
Keppel  responds,  "  ;T  is  the  last  fleet  he  shall  have  the  opportunity  of  beat 
ing,  however  !  "  The  third  figure  can  hardly  be  any  other  than  the  prime 
minister,  Lord  Rockingham,  though  it  does  not  look  much  like  him.  His 
comment  is,  "  This  is  more  than  we  expected,  more  than  we  wished." 

The  discomfited  ministers  sent  an  express  to  prevent  Admiral  Pigot  from 
sailing,  but  he  had  already  started.  The  viscount's  coronet  never  descended 
upon  Rodney's  head.  He  was  raised  to  the  peerage,  but  only  as  a  baron, 
and  was  given  a  pension  of  £2,000  a  year  ;  the  least  the  ministry  could  do  in 
deference  to  public  opinion. 

COUNT  ARANDA 19 

From  Blason  de  Esfana :  Libra  de  Oro  de  su  Nobleza,  torn.  i.  Autograph 


NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

from  a  MS.  in  the  National  Library  at  Madrid,  through  the  kindness  of> 
Hon.  Hannis  Taylor,  U.  S.  minister  at  the  Court  of  Spain. 

BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  CANADA,  AND  THE  SPAN 
ISH  POSSESSIONS,  ACCORDING  TO  THE  PROPOSALS  OF  THE 
COURT  OF  FRANCE  IN  1 782  (coloured  map]  ....  facing  20 

From  Lord  Edmond  Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  the  Earl  of  Shclburne. 

JOHN  ADAMS 23 

From  the  portrait  by  C.  W.  Peale,  in  Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia. 
Autograph  from  the  MS.  collection  of  Hon.  Mellen  Chamberlain. 

BOUNDARY  MONUMENT  ON  THE  ST.  CROIX 25 

After  a  plate  in  Bouchette's  British  Dominions  in  North  America,  Lon 
don,  1832. 

JOHN  JAY  (photogravure) facing  26 

From  the  original  portrait  by  Stuart,  in  Bedford  House,  the  homestead 
of  the  Jays,  at  Katonah,  N.  Y.  Autograph  from  Tuckerman's  William  Jay. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 29 

From  Geschichte  der  Kriege  in  und  ausser  Europa,  Theil  xi.  Niirnberg, 

1778. 

COUNT  VERGENNES  (photogravure] facing  30 

From  the  frontispiece  to  Doniol,  Histoire  de  la  Participation  de  la 
France  h  V Etablissement  des  Etats-Unis  d^Amcrique,  Paris,  1886,  5  vols., 
4to,  vol.  i. ;  an  engraving  by  Vangelisti,  from  the  original  painting  by 
Antoine  Frangois  Callet.  Autograph  from  the  same  book. 

ROBERT  R.  LIVINGSTON 33 

After  a  portrait  by  J.  Vanderlyn  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.    Auto 
graph  from  the  same  book. 

EDWARD  GIBBON 35 

From  the  painting  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  in  the  possession  of  the  Earl 
of  Sheffield.     Autograph  from  his  Autobiography. 

LORD  NORTH  AS  IGNAVIA 37 

From  Wright's  House  of  Hanover,  London,  1842. 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  VINEYARD 39 

From  the  Gillray  Caricatures,  Lenox  Library. 

The  Duke  of  Portland  is  handing  the  bunch  of  grapes  to  Fox  and  North, 
exclaiming,  "  Take  it  between  ye."  But  Reynard  appears  to  be  getting  the 
lion's  share. 

ISAAC  BARRE 41 

From  a  print  published  October  31,  1782,  by  J.  Walker,  44  Paternoster 
Row,  London  ;  now  in  Lenox  Library.  Autograph  from  Memorial  History 
of  Boston. 

THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  COMMISSIONERS  (photogravure}     facing  42 

After  the  unfinished  painting  by  Benjamin  West,  in  the  possession  of 


xxiv  NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Lord  Belper;   from  a  photograph  bequeathed  by  Charles  Sumner   to   the 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston. 

The  figures,  from  the  left  of  the  picture  to  the  right,  are  Jay,  Adams, 
Franklin,  Laurens,  and  Franklin's  grandson,  William  Temple  Franklin,  who 
looks  nearly  as  old  as  his  grandfather. 

FACSIMILE  SIGNATURES  OF  THE  TREATY  OF  PEACE    ....    43 

From  the  Magazine  of  American  History,  vol.  x.  p.  384,  after  the  original 
document  in  the  Department  of  State  at  Washington. 

GEORGE  III 45 

From  an  engraving  in  National  Portraits,  after  the  original  painting  by 
Sir  Thomas  Lawrence.  Autograph  from  Lossing's  Field-Book  of  the  Revo 
lution. 

WILLIAM  PITT 47 

From  an  engraving  in  National  Portraits,  after  the  original  painting  by 
Gainsborough.  Autograph  from  MS.  collection  in  Library  of  Boston  Athe 
naeum. 

THOMAS  PAINE 51 

From  a  small  octavo  print  in  Lenox  Library,  marked  "  Peel  pinx.,  Angus 
sculps."  Autograph  from  Appleton's  Cyclopcedia  of  American  Biography. 

FRAUNCES'S  TAVERN,-  NEW  YORK 52 

From  Valentine's  New  York  City  Manual,  1854.  This  house,  on  the 
corner  of  Broad  and  Pearl  streets,  is  said  to  be  the  oldest  now  standing  in 
the  city.  It  was  built  in  1700  by  Etienne  De  Lancey,  on  land  given  him  by 
his  father-in-law,  Stephanus  Van  Cortlandt.  In  1762  it  was  sold  by  Oliver 
De  Lancey  to  Samuel  Fraunces,  a  French  mulatto,  commonly  called  Black 
Sam,  who  used  it  for  a  tavern,  with  the  sign  "  Queen's  Head,"  in  honour  of 
Queen  Charlotte.  It  was  an  admirably  kept  tavern,  much  in  vogue  for  din 
ners,  soirees,  club-meetings,  etc.  Black  Sam  was  a  credit  to  his  profession. 

THOMAS  MIFFLIN 53 

From  the  original  painting  by  C.  W.  Peale,  in  Independence  Hall.  Auto 
graph  from  Appleton's  Cyclopedia  of  American  Biography. 

MOUNT  VERNON 55 

From  a  photograph.  The  house  was  built  about  1740  by  Augustine  Wash 
ington,  whose  son  Lawrence  named  the  estate  after  Admiral  Vernon,  under 
whom  he  had  served  in  the  expedition  against  Cartagena.  On  Lawrence's 
death,  in  1753,  it  passed  to  his  brother  George. 

WASHINGTON  RESIGNING  HIS  COMMISSION  AT  ANNAPOLIS  (photo 
gravure]     facing     56 

From  the  original  painting  by  Trumbull  in  the  Art  Gallery  of  Vale  Uni 
versity. 

FACSIMILE    OF    THE    PROCLAMATION   BY    CONGRESS,   JAN.   14, 
1784 58,  59 

Reduced  from  a  broadside  in  the  possession  of  the  Massachusetts  His 
torical  Society. 


NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS  xxv 

AUTOGRAPH  OF  JOHN  FITCH 60 

From  Watson's  Annals  of  Philadelphia. 

FITCH'S  FIRST  STEAMBOAT,  PERSEVERANCE 61 

From  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  Ne*u  Yorker  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

OLD  STAGE-COACH 63 

From  Basil  Hall's  Forty  Sketches  in  North  America,  London,  1829. 

WASHINGTON'S  COACH  AND  FOUR    ...» 65 

From  a  photograph  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

FITCH'S  STEAMBOAT  OF  1790 67 

From  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  New  Yorker  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

VIEW  OF  NORTH  SIDE  OF  WALL  STREET,  1785 69 

From  the  same. 

MERCHANTS'  EXCHANGE,  NEW  YORK,  1752-1799 71 

From  the  same. 

EDMUND  BURKE  73 

From  an  engraving  in  National  Portraits,  after  the  original  painting  by 
John  Opie,  in  the  possession  of  Countess  Delaware.  Autograph  from 
Burke's  Works,  vol.  i. 

LORD  THURLOW .75 

From  an  engraving  by  S.  W.  Reynolds,  after  the  original  painting  by  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds.  Autograph  from  the  MS.  collection  of  Hon.  Mellen 
Chamberlain. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON  (photogravure) facing    78 

From  a  painting  by  C.  W.  Peale,  by  the  kind  permission  of  its  present 
owner,  Mrs.  Joseph  Harrison,  of  Philadelphia.  Autograph  from  Washing 
ton's  signature  to  a  bill  of  exchange. 

POHICK  PARISH  CHURCH 83 

From  a  drawing  in  Virginia  State  Library 

SAMUEL  SEABURY,  BISHOP  OF  CONNECTICUT 85 

From  an  engraving  by  Ritchie  after  the  original  portrait  by  T.  S.  Duche. 
Autograph  from  Beardsley's  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Bishop  Seabury. 

FRANCIS  ASBURY 87 

From  Strickland's  Life  and  Times  of  Francis  Asbury.  Autograph  from 
the  same. 

JOHN  CARROLL,  ARCHBISHOP  OF  BALTIMORE 89 

From  an  engraving  in  O'Shea's  Lives  of  the  Deceased  Bishops  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States,  after  the  original  painting  by  Stuart. 
Autograph  from  J.  G.  Shea's  Catholic  Church  in  Colonial  Days. 

THE  AMERICAN  RATTLESNAKE 93 

From  the  Gillray  Caricatures,  Lenox  Library.  The  original  print  was 
published  April  12,  1782.  The  serpent  is  exclaiming  (observe  the  rhyme)  :  — 


xxvi  NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  Two  British  armies  I  have  thus  Burgoyned, 
And  room  for  more  I  've  got  behind  !  " 

A  placard  held  up  by  the  tail  announces  "  an  apartment  to  let  for  military 
gentlemen." 

JOHN  DICKINSON 05 

From  the  original  painting  by  C.  W.  Peale,  in  Independence  Hall.  Auto 
graph  from  Winsor's  America. 

THOMAS  MCKEAN 97 

From  an  engraving  by  P.  B.  Welch,  in  National  Portrait  Gallery,  after 
the  original  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart.  Autograph  from  the  same  book. 

JOHN  HANSON 99 

From  the  original  painting  by  C.  W.  Peale,  in  Independence  Hall.  Auto 
graph  from  the  MS.  collection  of  Hon.  Meilen  Chamberlain. 

ELIAS  BOUDINOT I0o 

From  a  steel  engraving  by  St.  Memin  in  1798;  frontispiece  to  Boudinot's 
Life  of  Elias  Boudinot.  Autograph  from  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

NATHANIEL  GORHAM 103 

From  an  etching  by  Rosenthal,  with  autograph  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

CYRUS  GRIFFIN I05 

From  a  painting  in  Independence  Hall,  after  an  original  miniature  by  Sully 
in  1801.  Autograph  from  MS.  collection  of  Hon.  Mellen  Chamberlain. 

FACSIMILE  OF  CONTINENTAL  BUDGET  FOR  1786 107 

Photographed  from  MS.  Reports  of  the  Board  of  Treasury  :  A  (Emmet : 
Lenox). 

PLAN  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK,  1776 no,  in 

From  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  New  Yorker  (Emmet:  Lenox). 

HORATIO  GATES n5 

From  a  pencil  sketch  by  Trumbull,  reproduced  in  the  Mount  Vernon  edi 
tion  of  Irving's  Life  of  Washington.  Autograph  from  MS.  collection  in 
Library  of  Boston  Athenaeum. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 117 

From  an  etching  by  Rosenthal,  after  an  original  painting  by  Wright,  in 
1 784  (Emmet:  Lenox). 

REAR  VIEW  OF  INDEPENDENCE  HALL 119 

From  a  photograph,  showing  its  present  appearance. 

OLD  VIEW  OF  MIDDLETOWN  FROM  THE  HARTFORD  ROAD  .    .  121 

From  Barber's  Connecticut  Historical  Collections. 

BADGE  OF  THE  CINCINNATI 122 

From  a  drawing  after  a  cut  in  Magazine  of  American  History,  vol.  x. 
p.  190. 

FACSIMILE  OF  TITLE-PAGE  OF  ^DANUS  BURKE'S  PAMPHLET    .  123 

Photographed  from  the  original  in  the  Library  of  Harvard  University. 


NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS  xxvii 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  (photogravure] facing  126 

Photographed  from  the  Houdon  bust,  by  kind  permission  of  its  owner, 
Hon.  Nicholas  Fish,  of  New  York.  Autograph  from  MS.  collection  in 
Library  of  Boston  Athenaeum. 

STONE    BRIDGE   WHERE    BROADWAY    NOW    CROSSES     CANAL 

STREET 129 

From  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  New  Yorker  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

LISPENARD'S  MEADOWS  FROM  SITE  OF  BROADWAY  AND  BROOME 

STREET I3I 

From  the  same. 
ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 133 

From  the  original  painting  by  Trumbull  in  the  New  York  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  by  kind  permission  of  Alexander  E.  Orr,  Esq.,  its  president. 

FACSIMILE  OF  A  CONTINENTAL  LOTTERY  TICKET 141 

(Emmet :  Lenox). 

INDEPENDENCE    HALL   AND    NEW    THEATRE,   PHILADELPHIA, 
1785 143 

After  a  print  in  Dr.  Emmet's  illustrations  of  the  Federal  Convention 
(Emmet :  Lenox). 

VIEW  FROM  BATTERY,  NEW  YORK 145 

After  a  sketch  in  Drayton's  Tour  through  the  Northern  and  Eastern 
States  of  America,  Charleston,  1794. 

The  ship  in  the  picture  is  the  French  frigate  Ambuscade,  which  had 
lately  brought  Citizen  Genet  to  America. 

GEORGE  CLINTON 149 

After  a  miniature  by  Ramage. 

ROOM  IN  FRAUNCES'S  TAVERN 147 

From  Appletorts  Journal,  vol.  xi. 

BIRD'S-EYE  VIEW  OF  WYOMING  VALLEY 151 

After  an  engraving  kindly  lent  by  Dr.  F.  C.  Johnson,  of  Wyoming  Com 
memoration  Society,  Wilkes-Barre. 

CONNECTICUT  SETTLEMENTS  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 153 

Abridged,  and  slightly  modified,  from  the  large  map  in   Hoyt's  Brief  of  a 
Title  in  the  Seventeen  Townships  in  the  County  of  Luzerne,  Harrisburg, 
1879. 

JOHN  ARMSTRONG 155 

From  an  engraving,  with  autograph,  in  Dr.  Emmet's  illustrations  of  the 
Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox),  after  an  original  portrait  by  J.  W. 
Jarvis. 

THOMAS  CHITTENDEN 159 

From  Walton's  Records  of  the  Council  of  Safety  and  Governor  and 
Coimcil  of  the  State  of  Vermont.  Autograph  from  the  same. 


xxviii  NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOHN  ADAMS ^3 

From  Geschiedenis  -van  het  Geschil  tusschen  Groot-Britannie  en  Amerika, 
Amsterdam,  1782. 

FACSIMILE    TITLE-PAGE   OF  THE   HISTORY  OF  THE    REIGX    OF 
MULEY  ISMAIL j6ij 

Photographed  from  the  copy  in  my  library. 

AUTOGRAPH  OF  WILLIAM  GRAYSON 168 

From  Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet:  Lenox).  I  have  been  unable  to 
find  any  portrait  of  Grayson. 

FOREIGN    COINS   FORMERLY  IN  CIRCULATION   IN   THE  UNITED 
STATES      ^ 

These  coins  are  all  represented  in  "  life  size."  The  pistole,  pistareen, 
guinea,  and  doubloon  are  from  Taylor's  Gold  and  Silver  Coin  Examiner, 
New  York,  1846.  The  ducat  and  carolin  are  from  Dye's  Coin  Chart  Man 
ual,  New  York,  1855.  The  shilling,  half  joe,  crown,  moidore,  and  Spanish 
dollar  are  from  The  Delineated  Coin  Chart,  Cincinnati,  1857. 

ISAIAH  THOMAS i7I 

From  the  portrait  by  Greenwood,  in  the  possession  of  the  American 
Antiquarian  Society,  at  Worcester.  The  autograph  is  from  a  MS.  kindly 
lent  by  Mr.  E.  M.  Barton,  librarian  of  the  Society. 

FACSIMILE  PAGE  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  SPY 173 

From  the  original,  in  possession  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society. 

ROBERT  MORRIS  (photogravure] facing  \n 

From  the  original  portrait  by  Stuart,  through  the  kind  permission  of  the 
owner,  C.  F.  M.  Stark,  Esq.,  of  Winchester,  Mass.  Autograph  from  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

SPECIMENS  OF  CONTINENTAL  CURRENCY 175,  176 

These  and  all  the  following  specimens  of  paper  currency  are  culled  from 
Dr.  Emmet's  superb  collection  in  the  Lenox  Library. 

SCALES  FOR  WEIGHING  COINS 177 

Photographed  from  the  original,  in  my  library.  The  box  and  scales  were 
used  by  my  great-great-grandfather,  Bezaleel  Fiske,  who  was  town-clerk  of 
Middletown,  Conn.,  from  1777  to  1797.  My  great-grandfather,  John  Fiske, 
who  succeeded  him  as  town-clerk,  held  the  office  until  his  death  in  1847.  I 
have  seen  him  weigh  coins  with  these  scales,  but  no  doubt  the  occasions  for 
such  testing  had  become  infrequent. 

SPECIMEN  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  CURRENCY 179 

SPECIMEN  OF  CONNECTICUT  CURRENCY 180 

SPECIMENS  OF  NEW  YORK  CURRENCY 183,  184 

SPECIMEN  OF  PENNSYLVANIA  CURRENCY 187 

SPECIMEN  OF  MARYLAND  CURRENCY 188 

FACSIMILE  OF  A  '•  KNOW  YE"  CERTIFICATE 191 

From  a  photograph  kindly  furnished  by  Amos  Perry,  Esq.,  of  the  Rhode 


NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS  xxix 

Island  Historical  Society.     The  extracts  are  from  the   United  States  Chron 
icle,  August  10,  1786. 

SPECIMEN  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA  CURRENCY 193 

GENUINE  AND  COUNTERFEIT  CONTINENTAL  NOTES    ....     194 
OLD  STREET  VIEW  IN  WORCESTER 195 

From  Barber's  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections. 

HOUSE  IN  PETERSHAM  WHERE  SHAYS  WAS  CAPTURED     .     .    .197 

A  typical  New  England  farmhouse,  spacious  and  comfortable.  For  many 
years  it  was  the  homestead  of  my  venerable  friend,  Deacon  Cephas  Willard, 
a  descendant  of  Simon  Willard  (see  my  Beginnings  of  New  England,  p. 
216),  and  member  of  a  family  which  has  given  two  presidents  to  Harvard. 
The  house  has  recently  been  pulled  down  ;  but  before  that  happened  it  was 
photographed  by  William  Simes,  Esq.,  to  whose  kindness  I  am  indebted  for 
the  opportunity  to  produce  this  woodcut. 

GOVERNOR  BOWDOIN'S  PROCLAMATION 199 

Reduced  from  a  copy  in  the  possession  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 

Society. 

JAMES  BOWDOIN 201 

From  an  original  miniature  by  Copley,  through  the  kindness  of  the  owner, 
Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Esq.  Autograph  from  Winsor's  America. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON  (photogravure) facing  204 

From  an  old  copy,  in  my  possession,  of  the  original  crayon  portrait  by  St. 
Memin.  Autograph  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  OHIO  (coloured  ?nap]    .   . .     .     .     .    facing  208 

In  making  this  map  my  chief  authority  was  Whittlesey's  Tract  6/,  West 
ern  Reserve  and  Northern  Ohio  Historical  Society. 

JEFFERSON'S  PROPOSED  STATES  IN  THE  NORTHWEST,  1784  .     .211 

Abridged  from  the  map  in  Winsor's  America,  vii.  529.  My  abridgment 
seems  to  have  cut  off  "  Sylvania,"  west  of  Lake  Superior. 

STATE  OF  FRANKLIN,  1 784-88  (coloured  map]    ....    facing  212 

I  have  never  seen,  nor  found  any  one  who  has  seen,  a  map  of  this  short 
lived  state  ;  and  have,  therefore,  done  the  best  I  could,  subject  to  correction. 

JOHN  SEVIER 215 

After  an  original  portrait  by  C.  W.  Peale,  presented  in  1891  by  Sevier's 
granddaughter,  Mrs.  Eliza  Sevier  Donald,  to  the  Tennessee  Historical 
Society  at  Nashville.  Autograph  from  Kirke's  Rear  Guard  of  the  Revolu 
tion. 

RUFUS  PUTNAM 217 

From  an  engraving  by  S.  Hollyer,  in  Matthews's  History  of  Washington 
County,  Ohio.  Autograph  from  the  same  book. 

RUFUS  PUTNAM'S  HOUSE  AT  RUTLAND,  MASS 218 

From  a  drawing  made  after  a  photograph. 


xxx  NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

MANASSEH  CUTLER      . 219 

From  Life,  Journals,  and  Correspondence  of  Rev.  Manasseh  Cutter,  Cin 
cinnati,  1888.  Autograph  from  the  same. 

MANASSEH  CUTLER'S  BIRTHPLACE  AT  KILLIXGLY,  CONN.     .     .  220 

From  a  photograph  kindly  lent  by  Miss  Ellen  Larned,  of  Thompson, 
Conn. 

WOLF  CREEK  MILLS,  OHIO,  1789 222 

From  the  American  Pioneer,  March,  1843. 

CAMPUS  MARTIUS,  MARIETTA,  OHIO 223 

From  the  same,  March,  1842. 

PLAN  OF  CAMPUS  MARTIUS 225 

From  Cohimbian  Magazine,  November,  1788. 

DIEGO  DE  GARDOQUI 227 

From  Bowen's  Washington  Centennial,  1889.  Autograph  from  a  MS. 
in  the  National  Library  at  Madrid,  through  the  kindness  of  Hon.  Hannis 
Taylor. 

SPANISH  CLAIM  IN  THE  SOUTHWEST  (coloured  map)     .    facing  228 
JOHN  TYLER,  THE  ELDER 231 

From  an  original  painting  by  James  Worrell,  in  the  Virginia  State  Library 
at  Richmond.  Autograph  from  Lossing's  Field-Book  of  the  Revolution. 

ANNAPOLIS  STATE  HOUSE 233 

From  Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

NATHAN  DANE 234 

From  an  etching  by  Rosenthal,  with  autograph,  in  Annapolis  Convention 
(Emmet  :  Lenox). 

FACSIMILE  OF  PRESIDENT   DICKINSON'S  LETTER  TO  THE  GOV 
ERNOR  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 235 

From  Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

RUFUS  KING 237 

From  the  original  miniature  by  Trumbull  —  painted  in  1792 in  the  Art 

Gallery  of  Yale  University.     Autograph  from  Annapolis  Convention  (Em 
met  :  Lenox) . 

OLD  REAR  VIEW  OF  INDEPENDENCE  HALL 239 

From  Etting's  History  of  Independence  Hall. 

JONATHAN  DAYTON 241 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  with  autograph,  in  Federal  Convention  (Em 
met  :  Lenox). 

JOHN  LANSING e  243 

From  the  same. 


NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS  xxxi 

JAMES  MADISON 245 

From  the  original  painting  by  C.  W.  Peale,  in  the  possession  of  the  Long 
Island  Historical  Society,  at  Brooklyn. 

WILLIAM  SAMUEL  JOHNSON 247 

From  Rosenthal's  etching  in  Federal  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox),  after 
the  original  painting  by  Stuart.  Autograph  from  the  same  collection. 

JAMES  MADISON  (photogravure) facing  248 

From  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  New  Yorker  (Emmet :  Lenox),  after  a 
drawing  made  by  James  Longacre  at  Montpelier  in  1833,  when  Madison  was 
in  his  eighty-third  year.  The  autograph  is  from  a  MS.  collection  in  Library 
of  Boston  Athenaeum. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON,  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  CONVENTION      .    .251 

Photographed  from  a  miniature  painted  from  life  by  Archibald  Robertson 
in  1791.  The  negative  was  kindly  lent  by  Clarence  Winthrop  Bowen,  Esq. 

WILLIAM  JACKSON,  SECRETARY  OF  THE  CONVENTION  .    .    .    .253 

From  Rosenthal's  etching  in  Federal  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox),  after 
the  original  painting  by  Trumbull.  Autograph  from  the  same  collection. 

EDMUND  RANDOLPH 255 

From  a  portrait  by  Fisher,  in  the  Virginia  State  Library,  at  Richmond. 
Autograph  from  MS.  collection  of  Hon.  Mellen  Chamberlain. 

GEORGE  WYTHE 257 

From  the  painting  by  Weir,  in  Independence  Hall,  after  an  original  by 
Trumbull.  Autograph  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

WILLIAM  LIVINGSTON 261 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  with  autograph,  in  Federal  Convention  (Em 
met  :  Lenox) . 

WILLIAM  PATERSON 263 

From  the  same  collection. 

ARMS  AND  AUTOGRAPH  OF  DAVID  BREARLEY 265 

From  the  same.     I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  portrait  of  Brearley. 
GUNNING  BEDFORD 267 

From  the  same. 

OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 268 

From  the  engraving  by  Mackenzie,  in  National  Portrait  Gallery,  after  an 
original  painting  by  James  Herring.  Autograph  from  the  same  book. 

ABRAHAM  BALDWIN 269 

From  an  engraving  by  J.  B.  Forrest,  after  an  original  sketch  by  Robert 
Fulton,  the  steamboat  inventor.  Autograph  from  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

ELBRIDGE  GERRY 271 

From  an  engraving  by  J.  B.  Longacre,  after  an  original  painting  by  Van- 
derlyn.  Autograph  from  Winsor's  America. 


xxxii  NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

GERRY'S  HOUSE  AT  CAMBRIDGE 273 

From  an  old  print.  The  house  was  built  between  1763  and  1767  by 
Thomas  Oliver,  the  last  Royal  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Massachusetts,  who 
left  it  in  1774,  never  to  return.  It  was  afterwards  for  many  years  the  home 
of  Elbridge  Gerry,  whose  successor  was  Rev.  Charles  Lowell,  father  of  James 
Russell  Lowell.  In  this  house  the  poet  was  born  and  died.  The  beautiful 
elms,  which  have  given  to  the  estate  the  name  Elmwood,  do  not  show  in  this 
picture,  and  most  of  them  have  probably  grown  up  within  the  present  cen 
tury. 

LUTHER  MARTIN ....  275 

From  a  painting  (after  an  unknown  original)  by  Tiffany,  in  Independence 
Hall.  Autograph  from  Federal  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

AUTOGRAPH  OF  ROBERT  YATES 276 

From  the  same  collection. 

PIERCE  BUTLER 278 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  with  autograph,  in  the  same  collection. 

JOHN  RUTLEDGE 279 

From  an  ambrotype  of  a  portrait  by  Trumbull,  kindly  lent  by  Mrs.  B.  H. 
Rutledge,  of  Charleston.  Autograph  from  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

CHARLES  COTESWORTH  PINCKNEY    283 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  after  an  original  painting  by  Trumbull,  in  Fed 
eral  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox).  Autograph  from  the  same  collection. 

GEORGE  MASON  {photogravure) facing  284 

From  a  painting  by  Herbert  Walsh,  in  Independence  Hall,  after  the  origi 
nal  by  Stuart.  Autograph  from  Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

CHARLES  PINCKNEY 285 

From  Rosenthal's  etching  in  Federal  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

FACSIMILE  OF  A  LETTER  WRITTEN  BY  CHARLES  PINCKNEY 

286,  287 

From  the  same  collection. 

GUNSTON  HALL,  VIRGINIA  :  MASON'S  HOME 289 

From  Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

JOHN  LANGDON 291 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  after  an  original  painting  by  Trumbull,  in  Fed 
eral  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox).  Autograph  from  the  same  collection. 

GEORGE  READ 295 

From  a  painting  by  Sully,  in  Independence  Hall,  after  the  original  by- 
Stuart.  Autograph  from  Federal  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

ROGER  SHERMAN  (photogravure) facing  298 

From  a  painting  by  Hicks,  in  Independence  Hall,  after  the  original  by 
Earle.  Autograph  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 


NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS               xxxiii 
DANIEL  CARROLL 301 

From  Rosenthal's  etching  in  Federal  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox).  Auto 
graph  from  signatures  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

WiLiJfiUi  BLOUNT 303 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  with  autograph,  in  Annapolis  Convention 
(Emmet:  Lenox). 

HUGH  WILLIAMSON 305 

From  an  engraving  by  Thomson  —  after  the  original  painting  by  Trum- 
bull  —  in  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  New  Yorker  ( Emmet :  Lenox).  Auto 
graph  from  signatures  to  the  Constitution. 

GOUVERNEUR    MORRIS 307 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  after  a  painting  by  Sully,  in  Federal  Conven 
tion  (Emmet :  Lenox).  Autograph  from  the  same  collection. 

JOHN  BLAIR 309 

From  Rosenthal's  etching,  in  the  same,  with  autograph. 

CALEB  STRONG •    ....  311 

From  the  same,  after  an  original  painting  by  Stuart. 

DANIEL  OF  ST.  THOMAS  JENIFER 313 

From  the  same,  after  an  original  painting  by  Trumbull. 

AUTOGRAPH  OF  WILLIAM  PIERCE 315 

From  the  MS.  collection  of  Hon.  Mellen  Chamberlain. 

FACSIMILE  OF  SIGNATURES  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION 322 

From  a  photograph  of  the  original  document,  kindly  lent  by  Andrew  H. 
Allen,  Esq..  from  the  Bureau  of  Rolls,  Department  of  State,  at  Washington. 

THE  PRESIDENT'S  ARMCHAIR 325 

From  Etting's  History  of  Independence  Hall. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  (photogravure)    .......    facing  328 

From  an  original  portrait  by  C.  W.  Peale,  in  the  possession  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  Historical  Society.  It  was  painted  in  1790,  when  Franklin  was 
eighty-four  years  old.  The  autograph  is  from  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence. 

GEORGE  CLYMER      331 

After  the  original  painting  by  C.  W.  Peale,  in.  the  Pennsylvania  Academy 
of  Fine  Arts.  Autograph  from  Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

JAMES  WILSON  (photogravure) facing  332 

From  a  painting  by  Wharton,  in  Independence  Hall,  after  an  original 
miniature  by  James  Peale.  Autograph  from  Federal  Convention  (Emmet : 
Lenox). 

BOSTON  IN  1790 335 

Facsimile  of  a  print  in  Massachusetts  Magazine,  November,  1790.  "  The 
point  of  view  is  in  Governor  Hancock's  grounds ;  the  Common,  with  the 


xxxiv  NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

great  elm,  is  in  the  middle  distance,  the  south  part  of  the  town  with  the  Neck 
are  beyond,  and  in  the  further  parts  are  Dorchester  Heights."  See  Winsor's 
America,  vii.  328.  One  is  impressed,  as  in  the  picture  of  Elmwood  on  page 
273,  with  the  absence  of  trees.  The  host  of  noble  elms,  which  to-day  make 
Boston  Common  as  bosky  as  Kensington  Gardens,  have  apparently  all  grown 
within  a  century. 

JOHN  HANCOCK 337 

From  An  Impartial  History  of  the  War  in  America,  London,  1780. 

THEOPHILUS  PARSONS 339 

From  an  engraving  by  Schiff,  in  the  Memoir  by  his  son,  Theophilus  Par 
sons,  after  an  original  painting  by  Stuart.  Autograph  from  a  MS.  Register 
in  the  Library  of  Harvard  University. 

FISHER  AMES 340 

From  the  original  miniature  painted  by  Trumbull  in  1792,  now  in  the  Art 
Gallery  of  Yale  University.  Autograph  from  the  MS.  collection  of  Hon. 
Mellen  Chamberlain. 

SILHOUETTE  OF  REV.  SAMUEL  WEST 343 

For  the  silhouette  and  autograph  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Mrs. 
Alice  G.  West,  of  Worcester.  The  portrait  undeniably  has  a  matronly  ex 
pression,  like  the  familiar  portrait  of  Samuel  Sewall;  but  the  excellent  parson 
was  masculine  enough  in  theology  and  politics,  and  could  strike  out  from  the 
shoulder  with  effect. 

TOMB  OF  JONATHAN  SMITH,  AT  LAXESBOROUGH 345 

From  a  photograph  kindly  furnished  by  J.  A.  Royce,  Esq.,  of  Lanes- 
borough.  I  have  been  unable  to  find  any  portrait  of  Mr.  Smith. 

AUTOGRAPH  OF  JONATHAN  SMITH 3 

Facsimile  of  his  signature,  as  a  selectman  of  Lanesborough,  to  a  document 
kindly  lent  me  by  his  great-granddaughter,  Mrs.  Jane  H.  Mills,  of  Amherst. 

SAMUEL  ADAMS    

From  An  Impartial  History  of  the  War  in  America,  London,  1780. 

SIGN  OF  GREEN  DRAGON  TAVERN 348 

From  E.  H.  Goss's  Life  of  Colonel  Paul  Revere. 

PAUL  REVERE 

349 

After  an  original  painting  by  Stuart.  Autograph  from  MS.  collection  in 
Library  of  Boston  Athenaeum. 

GOVERNOR   HANCOCK'S   LETTER   TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  CON- 
GRESS 352,353 

Photographed  from  the  original  document  in  Federal  Convention  (Em 
met  :  Lenox). 

FEDERAL  STREET  MEETING-HOUSE,  BOSTON 354 

From  Gannett's  Memorial  of  the  Federal-Street  Meeting-House  Boston 
1860. 


NOTES    ON    THE    ILLUSTRATIONS                xxxv 
BENJAMIN  HARRISON 357 

From  a  portrait  after  Trumbull,  in  Independence  Hall.  Autograph  from 
the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

EDMUND  PENDLETON 359 

From  a  painting  by  Sully,  in  the  Virginia  State  Library,  copied  from  a 
miniature.  Autograph  from  the  MS.  collection  of  Hon.  Mellen  Chamber 
lain. 

JOHN  MARSHALL  {photogravure) facing  360 

Photographed  from  a  miniature  by  St.  Memin,  in  the  possession  of  Miss 
Anne  Harvie,  of  Richmond,  a  daughter  of  the  only  daughter  of  Chief  Justice 
Marshall.  The  negative  was  kindly  lent  by  Mrs.  Sallie  Marshall  Hardy,  of 
Louisville,  Ky.  Autograph  from  MS.  collection  in  the  Library  of  the  Bos 
ton  Athenaeum. 

THE  NINTH  PILLAR  ERECTED 361 

From  the  Boston  Independent  Chronicle,  June  26,  1788,  in  the  Library 
of  the  Boston  Athenaeum. 

GEORGE  CLINTON 363 

From  an  engraving  in  Bowen's  Washington  Centennial,  after  the  por 
trait  by  Ames. 

AN  OLD  VIEW  OF  POUGHKEEPSIE 364 

From  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  New  Yorker  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 365 

From  an  engraving  in  Bowen's  Washington  Centennial,  after  the  minia 
ture  said  to  have  been  made  for  Prince  Talleyrand  by  James  Sharpless. 

MELANCTON  SMITH 367 

Photographed  from  a  pencil  sketch  in  Annapolis  Convention  (Emmet : 
Lenox),  where  no  information  about  it  is  given.  The  autograph  is  from  the 
same  collection.  ? 

PARADE  IN  NEW  YORK  IN  HONOUR  OF  THE  ADOPTION  OF  THE 
CONSTITUTION 369 

From  a  contemporary  print  in  Federal  Convention  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

WASHINGTON'S  LETTER  TO  JABEZ  BOWEN,  OF  RHODE   ISLAND  370 

Photographed  from  the  original  document  in  Federal  Convention  (Em 
met  :  Lenox). 

WASHINGTON'S  TRIUMPHAL  JOURNEY  TO  NEW  YORK  ....  372 

A  picture  by  George  Cruikshank,  from  Reminiscences  of  an  Old  New 
Yorker  (Emmet :  Lenox). 

INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON 374 

A  picture  by  Felix  Darley,  from  the  same. 


THE  CRITICAL  PERIOD  OF  AMERICAN 
HISTORY  •  • 


CHAPTER   I 

RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN 

THE  2Oth  of  March,  1782,  the  day  which  witnessed  the 
fall  of  Lord  North's  ministry,  was  a  day  of  good  omen  for 
men  of  English  race  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Within 
two  years  from  that  date,  the  treaty  which  established  the 
independence  of  the  United  States  was  successfully  nego 
tiated  at  Paris  ;  and  at  the  same  time,  as  part  of  the  series  of 
events  which  resulted  in  the  treaty,  there  went  on  in  Eng 
land  a  rapid  dissolution  and  reorganization  of  parties,  which 
ended  in  the  overwhelming  defeat  of  the  king's  attempt  to 
make  the  forms  of  the  constitution  subservient  to  his  selfish 
purposes,  and  established  the  liberty  of  the  people  upon  a 
broader  and  sounder  basis  than  it  had  ever  occupied  before. 
Great  indignation  was  expressed  at  the  time,  and  has  some 
times  been  echoed  by  British  historians,  over  the  conduct  of 
those  Whigs  who  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  expressing 
their  approval  of  the  American  revolt.  The  Duke  of  Rich 
mond,  at  the  beginning  of  the  contest,  expressed  a  hope  that 
the  Americans  might  succeed,  because  they  were  in  the 
right.  Charles  Fox  spoke  of  General  Howe's  first 
victory  as  "the  terrible  news  from  Long  Island." 
\Vraxall  says  that  the  celebrated  buff  and  blue  whigs  and 
colours  of  the  Whig  party  were  adopted  by  Fox 


in  imitation  of   the  Continental  uniform  ;  but  his    party  in 

unsupported  statement  is  open  to  question.     It  is 

certain,  however,  that  in  the  House  of  Commons  the  Whigs 


2  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

habitually  alluded  to  Washington's  army  as  "  our  army," 
and  to  the  American  cause  as  "  the  cause  of  liberty ; "  and 
Burke,  with  characteristic  vehemence,  declared  that  he 
would  rather  be  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower  with  Mr.  Laurens 
than  enjoy  the  blessings  of  freedom  in  company  with  the 
men  who^vere  seeking  to  enslave  America.  Still  more,  the 
Whigs 'did'  all  in  their  power  to  discourage  enlistments,  and  in 
'.Various  way's  fcfr  tKwarted  and  vexed  the  government  that  the 
success  of '  the  Americans  was  by  many  people  ascribed  to 
their  assistance.  A  few  days  before  Lord  North's  resignation, 
George  Onslow,  in  an  able  defence  of  the  prime  minister, 
exclaimed,  "  Why  have  we  failed  so  miserably  in  this  war 
against  America,  if  not  from  the  support  and  countenance 
given  to  rebellion  in  this  very  House  ? " 

Now  the  violence  of  party  leaders  like  Burke  and  Fox 
owed  much  of  its  strength,  no  doubt,  to  mere  rancorousness 
of  party  spirit.  But,  after  making  due  allowance  for  this,  we 
must  admit  that  it  was  essentially  based  upon  the  intensity 
of  their  conviction  that  the  cause  of  English  liberty  was 
inseparably  bound  up  with  the  defeat  of  the  king's  attempt 
upon  the  liberties  of  America.  Looking  beyond  the  quar 
rels  of  the  moment,  they  preferred  to  have  freedom  guaran 
teed,  even  at  the  cost  of  temporary  defeat  and  partial  loss  of 
empire.  Time  has  shown  that  they  were  right  in  this,  but 
the  majority  of  the  people  could  hardly  be  expected  to  com 
prehend  their  attitude.  It  seemed  to  many  that  the  great 
Whig  leaders  were  forgetting  their  true  character  as  English 
statesmen,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  for  many  years  this 
it  weak-  was  the  chief  source  of  the  weakness  of  the  Whig 
\mgs\n  PartY-  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot  said,  with  truth,  that  if 
England  the  Whigs  had  not  thus  to  a  considerable  extent 
arrayed  the  national  feeling  against  themselves,  Lord  North's 
ministry  would  have  fallen  some  years  sooner  than  it  did. 
The  king  thoroughly  understood  the  advantage  which  ac 
crued  to  him  from  this  state  of  things  ;  and  with  that  short 
sighted  shrewdness  of  the  mere  political  wire-puller,  in  which 
few  modern  politicians  have  excelled  him,  he  had  from  the 


gfTT"  *. TI tfiiTut.. :.'r^g'£g*iiii?  ' 


4  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

outset  preferred  to  fight  his  battle  on  constitutional  ques 
tions  in  America  rather  than  in  England,  in  order  that  the 
national  feeling  of  Englishmen  might  be  arrayed  on  his  side. 
He  was  at  length  thoroughly  beaten  on  his  own  ground,  and 
as  the  fatal  day  approached  he  raved  and  stormed  as  he  had 
not  stormed  since  the  spring  of  1778,  when  he  had  been 
asked  to  entrust  the  government  to  Lord  Chatham.  Like 
the  child  who  refuses  to  play  when  he  sees  the  game  going 
against  him,  George  threatened  to  abdicate  the  throne  and  go 
over  to  Hanover,  leaving  his  son  to  get  along  with  the  Whig 
statesmen.  But  presently  he  took  heart  again,  and  began 
to  resort  to  the  same  kind  of  political  management  which 
had  served  him  so  well  in  the  earlier  years  of  his  reign. 
Among  the  Whig  statesmen,  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham 
had  the  largest  political  following.  He  represented  the  old 
Whig  aristocracy,  his  section  of  the  party  had  been  first  to 
urge  the  recognition  of  American  independence,  and  his 
principal  followers  were  Fox  and  Burke.  For  all  these  rea 
sons  he  was  especially  obnoxious  to  the  king.  On  the  other 

hand,  the  Earl  of  Shelburne  was,  in  a  certain  sense, 
of  Lord  the  political  heir  of  Lord  Chatham,  and  represented 

principles  far  more  liberal  than  those  of  the  Old 
Whigs.  Shelburne  was  one  of  the  most  enlightened  states 
men  of  his  time.  He  was  an  earnest  advocate  of  parliamen 
tary  reform  and  of  free  trade.  He  had  paid  especial  atten 
tion  to  political  economy,  and  looked  with  disgust  upon  the 
whole  barbaric  system  of  discriminative  duties  and  commer 
cial  monopolies  which  had  been  so  largely  instrumental  in 
bringing  about  the  American  Revolution.  But  being  in  these 
respects  in  advance  of  his  age,  Lord  Shelburne  had  but  few 
followers.  Moreover,  although  a  man  of  undoubted  integ 
rity,  quite  exempt  from  sordid  or  selfish  ambition,  there  was 
a  cynical  harshness  about  him  which  made  him  generally 
disliked  and  distrusted.  He  was  so  suspicious  of  other  men 
that  other  men  were  suspicious  of  him  ;  so  that,  in  spite  of 
many  admirable  qualities,  he  was  extremely  ill  adapted  for 
the  work  of  a  party  manager. 


1782 


RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN 


5 


It  was  doubtless  for  these  reasons  that  the  king,  when  it 
became  clear  that  a  new  government  must  be  formed,  made 
up  his  mind  that  Lord  Shelburne  would  be  the  safest  man 
to  conduct  it.  In  his  hands  the  Whig  power  would  not  be 


likely  to  grow  too  strong,  and  dissensions  would  be  sure  to 
arise,  from  which  the  king  might  hope  to  profit.  The  first 
place  in  the  treasury  was  accordingly  offered  to  Shelburne  ; 
and  when  he  refused  it,  and  the  king  found  himself  forced 
to  appeal  to  Lord  Rockingham,  the  manner  in  which  the 
bitter  pill  was  taken  was  quite  characteristic  of  George  III. 
He  refused  to  meet  Rockingham  in  person,  but  sent  all 
his  communications  to  him  through  Shelburne,  who,  thus 


6  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

conspicuously  singled  out  as  the  object  of  royal  preference, 
was  certain  to  incur  the  distrust  of  his  fellow  ministers. 

The  structure  of  the  new  cabinet  was  unstable  enough, 
however,  to  have  satisfied  even  such  an  enemy  as  the  king. 
Beside  Rockingham  himself,  Lord  John  Cavendish,  Charles 
Fox,  Lord  Keppel,  and  the  Duke  of  Richmond  were  all  Old 
Whigs.  To  offset  these  five  there  were  five  New  Whigs,  the 
Duke  of  Graf  ton,  Lords  Shelburne,  Camden,  and  Ashburton, 
and  General  Conway  ;  while  the  eleventh  member  was  none 
other  than  the  Tory  chancellor,  Lord  Thurlow,  who  was 
kept  over  from  Lord  North's  ministry.  Burke  was  made 
paymaster  of  the  forces,  but  had  no  seat  in  the  cabinet.  In 
this  curiously  constructed  cabinet,  the  prime  minister,  Lord 
Political  in-  Rockingham,  counted  for  little.  Though  a  good 
thebRock°f  Party  leader,  he  was  below  mediocrity  as  a  states- 
ingham  man,  and  his  health  was  failing,  so  that  he  could 
not  attend  to  business.  The  master  spirits  were 
the  two  secretaries  of  state,  Fox  and  Shelburne,  and  they 
wrangled  perpetually,  while  Thurlow  carried  the  news  of  all 
their  quarrels  to  the  king,  and  in  cabinet  meetings  usually 
voted  with  Shelburne.  The  ministry  had  not  lasted  five 
weeks  when  Fox  began  to  predict  its  downfall.  On  the 
great  question  of  parliamentary  reform,  which  was  brought 
up  in  May  by  the  young  William  Pitt,  the  government  was 
hopelessly  divided.  Shelburne' s  party  was  in  favor  of  reform, 
and  this  time  Fox  was  found  upon  the  same  side,  as  well  as 
the  Duke  of  Richmond,  who  went  so  far  as  to  advocate 
universal  suffrage.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Whig  aristocracy, 
led  by  Rockingham,  were  as  bitterly  opposed  as  the  king 
himself  to  any  change  in  the  method  of  electing  parliaments  ; 
and,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  even  such  a  man  as  Burke 
maintained  that  the  old  system,  rotten  boroughs  and  all,  was 
a  sacred  part  of  the  British  Constitution,  which  none  could 
handle  rudely  without  endangering  the  country !  But  in 
this  moment  of  reaction  against  the  evil  influences  which  had 
brought  about  the  loss  of  the  American  colonies,  there  was 
a  strong  feeling  in  favour  of  reform,  and  Pitt's  motion  was 


1782 


RESULTS   OF   YORKTOWN 


only  lost  by  a  minority  of  twenty  in  a  total  vote  of  three 
hundred.  Half  a  century  was  to  elapse  before  the  reformers 
were  again  to  come  so  near  to  victory. 

But  Lord  Rockingham's  weak  and  short-lived  ministry  was 
nevertheless  remarkable  for  the  amount  of  good  work  it  did 


1 


in  spite  of  the  king's  dogged  opposition.  It  contained  great 
administrative  talent,  which  made  itself  felt  in  the  most 
adverse  circumstances.  To  add  to  the  difficulty,  the  minis 
try  came  into  office  at  the  critical  moment  of  a  great  agita 
tion  in  Ireland.  In  less  than  three  months,  not  only  was  the 
trouble  successfully  removed,  but  the  important  bills  for  dis 
franchising  revenue  officers  and  excluding  contractors  from 


8  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

the  House  of  Commons  were  carried,  and  a  tremendous  blow 
was  thus  struck  at  the  corrupt  influence  of  the  crown  upon 
elections.  Burke' s  great  scheme  of  economical  reform  was 
also  put  into  operation,  cutting  down  the  pension  list  and 
diminishing  the  secret  service  fund,  and  thus  destroying 
many  sources  of  corruption.  At  no  time,  perhaps,  since  the 
expulsion  of  the  Stuarts,  had  so  much  been  done  toward 
purifying  English  political  life  as  during  the  spring  of  1782. 
But  during  the  progress  of  these  important  measures,  the 
jealousies  and  bickerings  in  the  cabinet  became  more  and 
more  painfully  apparent,  and  as  the  question  of  peace  with 
America  came  into  the  foreground,  these  difficulties  hastened 
to  a  crisis. 

From  the  policy  which  George  III.  pursued  with  regard 
to  Lord  Shelburne  at  this  time,  one  would  suppose  that  in 
his  secret  heart  the  king  wished,  by  foul  means  since  all 
others  had  failed,  to  defeat  the  negotiations  for  peace  and 
to  prolong  the  war.  Seldom  has  there  been  a  more  oddly 
Obstacles  complicated  situation.  Peace  was  to  be  made  with 
onffterelty  America,  France,  Spain,  and  Holland.  Of  these 
of  peace  powers,  America  and  France  were  leagued  together 
by  one  treaty  of  alliance,  and  France  and  Spain  by  another, 
and  these  treaties  in  some  respects  conflicted  with  one 
another  in  the  duties  which  they  entailed  upon  the  combat 
ants.  Spain,  though  at  war  with  England  for  purposes  of 
her  own,  was  bitterly  hostile  to  the  United  States ;  and 
France,  thus  leagued  with  two  allies  which  pulled  in  opposite 
directions,  felt  bound  to  satisfy  both,  while  pursuing  her  own 
ends  against  England.  To  deal  with  such  a  chaotic  state  of 
things,  an  orderly  and  harmonious  government  in  England 
should  have  seemed  indispensably  necessary.  Yet  on  the 
part  of  England  the  negotiation  of  a  treaty  of  peace  was  to 
be  the  work  of  two  secretaries  of  state  who  were  both  politi 
cally  and  personally  hostile  to  each  other.  Fox,  as  secretary 
of  state  for  foreign  affairs,  had  to  superintend  the  nego 
tiations  with  France,  Spain,  and  Holland.  Shelburne  was 
secretary  of  state  for  home  and  colonial  affairs  ;  and  as  the 


1782  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  9 

United  States  were  still  officially  regarded  as  colonies,  the 
American  negotiations  belonged  to  his  department.  With 
such  a  complication  of  conflicting  interests,  George  III. 
might  well  hope  that  no  treaty  could  be  made. 

The  views  of  Fox  and  Shelburne  as  to  the  best  method  of 
conceding  American  independence  were  very  different.  Fox 
understood  that  France  was  really  in  need  of  peace,  and  he 
believed  that  she  would  not  make  further  demands  upon 
England  if  American  independence  should  once  be  recog 
nized.  Accordingly,  Fox  would  have  made  this  concession 
at  once  as  a  preliminary  to  the  negotiation.  On  the  other 
hand,  Shelburne  felt  sure  that  France  would  insist  upon 
further  concessions,  and  he  thought  it  best  to  hold  in  reserve 
the  recognition  of  independence  as  a  consideration  to  be 
bargained  for.  Informal  negotiations  began  between  Shel 
burne  and  Franklin,  who  for  many  years  had  been  warm 
friends.  In  view  of  the  impending  change  of  government, 
Franklin  had  in  March  sent  a  letter  to  Shelburne,  expressing 
a  hope  that  peace  might  soon  be  restored.  When  the  letter 
reached  London  the  new  ministry  had  already  been  formed, 
and  Shelburne,  with  the  consent  of  the  cabinet,  answered 
it  by  sending  over  to  Paris  an  agent,  to  talk  with  Franklin 
informally,  and  ascertain  the  terms  upon  which  the  Ameri 
cans  would  make  peace.  The  person  chosen  for  this  purpose 
was  Richard  Oswald,  a  Scotch  merchant,  who  owned  large 
estates  in  America,  —  a  man  of  very  frank  disposition  and 
liberal  views,  and  a  friend  of  Adam  Smith.  In  April, 
Oswald  had  several  conversations  with  Franklin. 

Oswald 

In  one  of  these  conversations  Franklin  suggested   talks  with 

,         ,  ,  .  ,      .         Franklin 

that,  m  order  to  make  a  durable  peace,  it  was  desir 
able  to  remove  all  occasion  for  future  quarrel ;  that  the  line 
of  frontier  between  New  York  and  Canada  was  inhabited  by 
a  lawless  set  of  men,  who  in  time  of  peace  would  be  likely  to 
breed  trouble  between  their  respective  governments ;  and 
that  therefore  it  would  be  well  for  England  to  cede  Canada 
to  the  United  States.  A  similar  reasoning  would  apply  to 
Nova  Scotia.  By  ceding  these  countries  to  the  United 


io  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

States  it  would  be  possible,  from  the  sale  of  unappropriated 
lands,  to  indemnify  the  Americans  for  all  losses  of  private 
property  during  the  war,  and  also  to  make  reparation  to  the 
Tories,  whose  estates  had  been  confiscated.  By  pursuing 
such  a  policy,  England,  which  had  made  war  on  America 
unjustly,  and  had  wantonly  done  it  great  injuries,  would 
achieve  not  merely  peace,  but  reconciliation,  with  America  ; 
and  reconciliation,  said  Franklin,  is  "a  sweet  word."  No 
doubt  this  was  a  bold  tone  for  Franklin  to  take,  and  perhaps 
it  was  rather  cool  in  him  to  ask  for  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia  ; 
but  he  knew  that  almost  every  member  of  the  Whig  ministry 
had  publicly  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  war  against 
America  was  an  unjust  and  wanton  war  ;  and  being,  more 
over,  a  shrewd  hand  at  a  bargain,  he  began  by  setting  his 
terms  high.  Oswald  doubtless  looked  at  the  matter  very 
much  from  Franklin's  point  of  view,  for  on  the  suggestion 
of  the  cession  of  Canada  he  expressed  neither  surprise  nor 
reluctance.  Franklin  had  written  on  a  sheet  of  paper  the 
main  points  of  his  conversation,  and,  at  Oswald's  request,  he 
allowed  him  to  take  the  paper  to  London  to  show  to  Lord 
Shelburne,  first  writing  upon  it  a  note  expressly  declaring 
its  informal  character.  Franklin  also  sent  a  letter  to  Shel 
burne,  describing  Oswald  as  a  gentleman  with  whom  he 
found  it  very  pleasant  to  deal.  On  Oswald's  arrival  in  Lon 
don,  Shelburne  did  not  show  the  notes  of  the  conversation 
to  any  of  his  colleagues,  except  Lord  Ashburton.  He  kept 
the  paper  over  one  night,  and  then  returned  it  to  Franklin 
without  any  formal  answer.  But  the  letter  he  showed  to  the 
cabinet,  and  on  the  23d  of  April  it  was  decided  to  send 
Oswald  back  to  Paris,  to  represent  to  Franklin  that,  on  being 
restored  to  the  same  situation  in  which  she  was  left  by  the 
treaty  of  1763,  Great  Britain  would  be  willing  to  recognize 
the  independence  of  the  United  States.  Fox  was  authorized 
to  make  a  similar  representation  to  the  French  government, 
and  the  person  whom  he  sent  to  Paris  for  this  purpose  was 
Thomas  Grenville,  son  of  the  author  of  the  Stamp  Act. 
As  all  British  subjects  were  prohibited  from  entering  into 


1782  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  II 

negotiations  with  the  revolted  colonies,  it  was  impossible  for 
Oswald  to  take  any  decisive  step  until  an  enabling  act  should 
be  carried  through  Parliament.  But  while  waiting  for  this 
he  might  still  talk  informally  with  Franklin.  Fox  thought 
that  Oswald's  presence  in  Paris  indicated  a  desire  on  Shel- 
burne's  part  to  interfere  with  the  negotiations  with  the 
French  government ;  and  indeed,  the  king,  out  of  his  hatred 
of  Fox  and  his  inborn  love  of  intrigue,  suggested  to  Shel- 
burne  that  Oswald  "  might  be  a  useful  check  on  that  part  of 
the  negotiation  which  was  in  other  hands."  But  Shelburne 


paid  no  heed  to  this  crooked  advice,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  he  had  the  least  desire  to  intrigue  against  Fox. 
If  he  had,  he  would  certainly  have  selected  some  other  agent 
than  Oswald,  who  was  the  most  straightforward  of  men,  and 
scarcely  close-mouthed  enough  for  a  diplomatist.  He  told 
Oswald  to  impress  it  upon  Franklin  that  if  America  was  to 


12  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

be  independent  at  all  she  must  be  independent  of  the  whole 
world,  and  must  not  enter  into  any  secret  arrangement  with 
France  which  might  limit  her  entire  freedom  of  action  in 
the  future.  To  the  private  memorandum  which  desired  the 
cession  of  Canada  for  three  reasons,  his  answers  were  as  fol 
lows  :  "  i.  By  way  of  reparation.  — Answer.  No  reparation 
can  be  heard  of.  2.  To  prevent  future  wars.  —  Answer.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  some  more  friendly  method  will  be  found. 
3.  As  a  fund  of  indemnification  to  loyalists.  — Answer.  No 
independence  to  be  acknowledged  without  their  being  taken 
care  of."  Besides,  added  Shelburne,  the  Americans  would 
be  expected  to  make  some  compensation  for  the  surrender  of 
Charleston,  Savannah,  and  the  city  of  New  York,  still  held 
by  British  troops.  From  this  it  appears  that  Shelburne,  as 
well  as  Franklin,  knew  how  to  begin  by  asking  more  than 
he  was  likely  to  get. 

While  Oswald  submitted  these  answers  to  Franklin,  Gren- 
ville  had  his  interview  with  Vergennes,  and  told  him  that, 
Grenviiie  if  England  recognized  the  independence  of  the 
has  an  United  States,  she  should  expect  France  to  restore 
with  ver-  the  islands  of  the  West  Indies  which  she  had  taken 
from  England.  Why  not,  since  the  independence 
of  the  United  States  was  the  sole  avowed  object  for  which 
France  had  gone  to  war  ?  Now  this  was  on  the  8th  of  May, 
and  the  news  of  the  destruction  of  the  French  fleet  in  the 
West  Indies,  nearly  four  weeks  ago,  had  not  yet  reached 
Europe.  Flushed  with  the  victories  of  Grasse,  and  exulting 
in  the  prowess  of  the  most  formidable  naval  force  that 
France  had  ever  sent  out,  Vergennes  not  only  expected  to 
keep  the  islands  which  he  had  got,  but  was  waiting  eagerly 
for  the  news  that  he  had  acquired  Jamaica  besides.  In  this 
mood  he  returned  a  haughty  answer  to  Grenviiie.  He  re 
minded  him  that  nations  often  went  to  war  for  a  specified 
object,  and  yet  seized  twice  as  much  if  favoured  by  for 
tune  ;  and,  recurring  to  the  instance  which  rankled  most 
deeply  in  the  memories  of  Frenchmen,  he  cited  the  events 
of  the  last  war.  In  1756  England  went  to  war  with  France 


I4  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

over  the  disputed  right  to  some  lands  on  the  Ohio  River  and 
the  Maine  frontier.  After  seven  years  of  fighting  she  not 
only  kept  these  lands,  but  all  of  Canada,  Louisiana,  and 
Florida,  and  ousted  the  French  from  India  into  the  bargain. 
No,  said  Vergennes,  he  would  not  rest  content  with  the  inde 
pendence  of  America.  He  would  not  even  regard  such  an 
offer  as  a  concession  to  France  in  any  way,  or  as  a  price  in 
return  for  which  France  was  to  ^make  a  treaty  favourable  to 
England.  As  regards  the  recognition  of  independence,  Eng 
land  must  treat  directly  with  America. 

Grenville  was  disappointed  and  chagrined  by  this  answer, 
and  the  ministry  made  up  their  minds  that  there  would  be 
no  use  in  trying  to  get  an  honourable  peace  with  France 
for  the  present.  Accordingly,  it  seemed  better  to  take  Ver 
gennes  at  his  word,  though  not  in  the  sense  in  which  he 
meant  it,  and,  by  granting  all  that  the  Americans  could  rea 
sonably  desire,  to  detach  them  from  the  French  alliance  as 
soon  as  possible.  On  the  i8th  of  May  there  came  the  news 
of  the  stupendous  victory  of  Rodney  over  Grasse, 

Effects  of  . J      .  J 

Rodney's  and  all  England  rang  with  jubilee.  Again  it  had 
been  shown  that  "  Britannia  rules  the  wave  ;  "  and 
it  seemed  that,  if  America  could  be  separately  pacified,  the 
House  of  Bourbon  might  be  successfully  defied.  Accord 
ingly,  on  the  23d,  five  days  after  the  news  of  victory,  the 
ministry  decided  "  to  propose  the  independence  of  America 
in  the  first  instance,  instead  of  making  it  the  condition  of  a 
general  treaty."  Upon  this  Fox  rather  hastily  maintained 
that  the  United  States  were  put  at  once  into  the  position  of 
an  independent  and  foreign  power,  so  that  the  business  of 
negotiating  with  them  passed  from  Shelburne's  department 
into  his  own.  Shelburne,  on  the  other  hand,  argued  that,  as 
the  recognition  of  independence  could  not  take  effect  until 
a  treaty  of  peace  should  be  concluded,  the  negotiation  with 
America  still  belonged  to  him,  as  secretary  for  the  colonies. 
Following  Fox's  instructions,  Grenville  now  claimed  the  right 
of  negotiating  with  Franklin  as  well  as  with  Vergennes  ;  but 
as  his  written  credentials  only  authorized  him  to  treat  with 


1782  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  15 

France,  the  French  minister  suspected  foul  play,  and  turned 
a  cold  shoulder  to  Grenville.  For  the  same  reason,  Gren- 
ville  found  Franklin  very  reserved  and  indisposed  to  talk  on 
the  subject  of  the  treaty.  While  Grenville  was  thus  rebuffed 
and  irritated  he  had  a  talk  with  Oswald,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  got  from  that  simple  and  high-minded  gentleman 
the  story  of  the  private  paper  relating  to  the  cession  of  Can 
ada,  which  Franklin  had  permitted  Lord  Shelburne  to  see. 
Grenville  immediately  took  offence  ;  he  made  up  his  mind 
that  something  underhanded  was  going  on,  and  that  this 
was  the  reason  for  the  coldness  of  Franklin  and  Vergennes  ; 
and  he  wrote  an  indignant  letter  about  it  to  Fox.  From  the 
wording  of  this  letter,  Fox  got  the  impression  that  Frank 
lin's  proposal  was  much  more  serious  than  it  really  was.  It 
naturally  puzzled  him  and  made  him  angry,  for  the  attitude 
of  America  implied  in  the  request  for  a  cession  of  Canada 
was  far  different  from  the  attitude  presumed  by  the  theory 
that  the  mere  offer  of  independence  would  be  enough  to 
detach  her  from  her  alliance  with  France.  The  plan  of  the 
ministry  seemed  imperilled.  Fox  showed  Grenville's  letter 
to  Rockingham,  Richmond,  and  Cavendish  ;  and  they  all 
inferred  that  Shelburne  was  playing  a  secret  part,  for  pur 
poses  of  his  own.  This  was  doubtless  unjust  to  Shelburne. 
Perhaps  his  keeping  the  matter  to  himself  was  simply  one 
more  illustration  of  his  want  of  confidence  in  Fox  ;  or,  per 
haps  he  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  stir  up  the  cabinet 
over  a  question  which  seemed  too  preposterous  ever  to  come 
to  anything.  Fox,  however,  cried  out  against  Shelburne' s 
alleged  duplicity,  and  made  up  his  mind  at  all  events  to  get 
the  American  negotiations  transferred  to  his  own  depart 
ment.  To  this  end  he  moved  in  the  cabinet,  on  the  last  day 
of  June,  that  the  independence  of  the  United  States  should 
be  unconditionally  acknowledged,  so  that  England  Fall  of  the 
might  treat  as  with  a  foreign  power.  The  motion  Rocking- 

i  i    -r^  1111  ham  minis- 

Was  lost,  and  Fox  announced  that  he  should  re-   try,  July  i, 

sign  his  office.      His   resignation  would  probably    I?82 

of  itself  have  broken  up  the  ministry,  but,  by  a  curious 


16  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

coincidence,  on  the  next  day  Lord  Rockingham  died;  and 
so  the  first  British  government  begotten  of  Washington's 
victory  at  Yorktown  came  prematurely  to  an  end. 

The  Old  Whigs  now  found  some  difficulty  in  choosing  a 
leader.  Burke  was  the  greatest  statesman  in  the  party,  but 
he  had  not  the  qualities  of  a  party  leader,  and  his  connec 
tions  were  not  sufficiently  aristocratic.  Fox  was  distrusted 
by  many  people  for  his  gross  vices,  and  because  of  his  way 
wardness  in  politics.  In  the  dissipated  gambler,  who  cast 
in  his  lot  first  with  one  party  and  then  with  the  other,  and 
who  had  shamefully  used  his  matchless  eloquence  in  defend 
ing  some  of  the  worst  abuses  of  the  time,  there  seemed  as 
yet  but  little  promise  of  the  great  reformer  of  later  years, 
the  Charles  Fox  who  came  to  be  loved  and  idolized  by  all 
enlightened  Englishmen.  Next  to  Fox,  the  ablest  leader  in 
the  party  was  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  but  his  advanced 
views  on  parliamentary  reform  put  him  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  majority  of  the  party.  In  this  embarrassment,  the 
choice  fell  upon  the  Duke  of  Portland,  a  man  of  great  wealth 
and  small  talent,  concerning  whom  Horace  Walpole  ob 
served,  "  It  is  very  entertaining  that  two  or  three  great  fam 
ilies  should  persuade  themselves  that  they  have  a  hereditary 
and  exclusive  right  of  giving  us  a  head  without  a  tongue  !  " 
The  choice  was  a  weak  one,  and  played  directly  into  the 
hands  of  the  king.  When  urged  to  make  the  Duke  of  Port 
land  his  prime  minister,  the  king  replied  that  he  had  already 
offered  that  position  to  Lord  Shelburne.  Here- 

Shelburne 

prime  min-  upon  Fox  and  Cavendish  resigned,  but  Richmond 
remained  in  office,  thus  virtually  breaking  his  con 
nection  with  the  Old  Whigs.  Lord  Keppel  also  remained. 
Many  members  of  the  party  followed  Richmond  and  went 
over  to  Shelburne.  William  Pitt,  now  twenty-three  years 
old,  succeeded  Cavendish  as  chancellor  of  the  exchequer  ; 
Thomas  Townshend  became  secretary  of  state  for  home  and 
colonies,  and  Lord  Grantham  became  foreign  secretary. 
The  closing  days  of  Parliament  were  marked  by  altercations 
which  showed  how  wide  the  breach  had  grown  between  the 


1782  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  17 

two  sections  of  the  Whig  party.  Fox  and  Burke  believed 
that  Shelburne  was  not  only  playing  a  false  part,  but  was 
really  as  subservient  to  the  king  as  Lord  North  had  been. 
In  a  speech  ridiculous  for  its  furious  invective,  Burke  -com 
pared  the  new  prime  minister  with  Borgia  and  Catiline.  And 
so  Parliament  was  adjourned  on  the  nth  of  July,  and  did 
not  meet  again  until  December. 

The  task  of  making  a  treaty  of  peace  was  simplified  both 
by  this  change  of  ministry  and  by  the  total  defeat  of  the 
Spaniards  and  French  at  Gibraltar  in  September.  Six 
months  before,  England  had  seemed  worsted  in  every  quar 
ter.  Now  England,  though  defeated  in  America,  was  victo 
rious  as  regarded  France  and  Spain.  The  avowed  object  for 
which  France  had  entered  into  alliance  with  the  Americans 
was  to  secure  the  independence  of  the  United  States,  and 
this  point  was  now  substantially  gained.  The  chief  object 
for  which  Spain  had  entered  into  alliance  with  France  was 
to  drive  the  English  from  Gibraltar,  and  this  point  was  now 
decidedly  lost.  France  had  bound  herself  not  to  desist  from 
the  war  until  Spain  should  recover  Gibraltar  ;  but  now  there 
was  little  hope  of  accomplishing  this,  except  by  some  fortu 
nate  bargain  in  the  treaty,  and  Vergennes  tried  to  persuade 
England  to  cede  the  great  stronghold  in  exchange  for  West 
Florida,  which  Spain  had  lately  conquered,  or  for  Oran  or 
Guadaloupe.  Failing  in  this,  he  adopted  a  plan  for  satisfy 
ing  Spain  at  the  expense  of  the  United  States ;  and  he  did 
this  the  more  willingly  as  he  had  no  love  for  French 
the  Americans,  and  did  not  wish  to  see  them  be-  policy  op- 
come  too  powerful.  France  had  strictly  kept  her  American 
pledges ;  she  had  given  us  valuable  and  timely  aid  interests 
in  gaining  our  independence  ;  and  the  sympathies  of  the 
French  people  were  entirely  with  the  American  cause.  But 
the  object  of  the  French  government  had  been  simply  to 
humiliate  England,  and  this  end  was  sufficiently  accom 
plished  by  depriving  her  of  her  thirteen  colonies. 

The   immense   territory  extending   from   the  Alleghany 
Mountains  to  the  Mississippi  River,  and  from  the  border  of 


i8  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

West  Florida  to  the  Great  Lakes,  had  passed  from  the  hands 
of  France  into  those  of  England  at  the  peace  of  1763  ;  and 
by  the  Quebec  Act  of  1774  England  had  declared  the  south 
ern  boundary  of  Canada  to  be  the  Ohio  River.  At  present 
the  whole  territory,  from  Lake  Superior  down  to  the  south 
ern  boundary  of  what  is  now  Kentucky,  belonged  to  the 
state  of  Virginia,  whose  backwoodsmen  had  conquered  it 
from  England  in  1779.  In  December,  1780,  Virginia  had 
provisionally  ceded  the  portion  north  of  the  Ohio  to  the 
United  States,  but  the  cession  was  not  yet  completed.  The 
region  which  is  now  Tennessee  belonged  to  North  Carolina, 
which  had  begun  to  make  settlements  there  as  long  ago  as 
1758.  The  trackless  forests  included  between  Tennessee 
and  West  Florida  were  still  in  the  hands  of  wild  tribes  of 
Cherokees  and  Choctaws,  Chickasaws  and  Creeks.  Several 
Thevaiie  thousand  pioneers  from  North  Carolina  and  Vir- 
of  the  Mis-  ghiia  had  already  settled  beyond  the  mountains, 

sissippi;  .  J  ... 

Aranda's  and  the  white  population  was  rapidly  increasing. 
This  territory  the  French  government  was  very 
unwilling  to  leave  in  American  hands.  The  possibility  of 
enormous  expansion  which  it  would  afford  to  the  new  nation 
was  distinctly  foreseen  by  sagacious  men.  Count  Aranda, 
the  representative  of  Spain  in  these  negotiations,  wrote  a 
letter  to  his  king  just  after  the  treaty  was  concluded,  in 
which  he  uttered  this  notable  prophecy :  "  This  federal 
republic  is  born  a  pygmy.  A  day  will  come  when  it  will 
be  a  giant,  even  a  colossus,  formidable  in  these  countries. 
Liberty  of  conscience,  the  facility  for  establishing  a  new  pop 
ulation  on  immense  lands,  as  well  as  the  advantages  of  the 
new  government,  will  draw  thither  farmers  and  artisans  from 
all  the  nations.  In  a  few  years  we  shall  watch  with  grief 
the  tyrannical  existence  of  this  same  colossus."  The  letter 
went  on  to  predict  that  the  Americans  would  presently  get 
possession  of  Florida  and  attack  Mexico.  Similar  arguments 
were  doubtless  used  by  Aranda  in  his  interviews  with  Ver- 
gennes,  and  France,  as  well  as  Spain,  sought  to  prevent  the 
growth  of  the  dreaded  colossus.  To  this  end  Vergennes 


1782  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN  19 

maintained  that  the  Americans  ought  to  recognize  the  Que 
bec  Act,  and  give  up  to  England  all  the  territory  north  of 
the  Ohio  River.  The  region  south  of  this  limit  should,  he 
thought,  be  made  an  Indian  territory,  and  placed  under  the 
protection  of  Spain  and  the  United  States.  A  line  was  to 
be  drawn  from  the  mouth  of  the  Cumberland  River,  follow 
ing  that  stream  about  as  far  as  the  site  of  Nashville,  thence 


running  southward  to  the  Tennessee,  thence  curving  east 
ward  nearly  to  the  Alleghanies,  and  descending  through 
what  is  now  eastern  Alabama  to  the  Florida  line.  The  ter 
ritory  to  the  east  of  this  irregular  line  was  to  be  under  the 
protection  of  the  United  States  ;  the  territory  to  the  west 
of  it  was  to  be  under  the  protection  of  Spain.  In  this  divi 
sion,  the  settlers  beyond  the  mountains  would  retain  their 
connection  with  the  United  States,  which  would  not  touch 
the  Mississippi  River  at  any  point.  Vergennes  held  that 
this  was  all  the  Americans  could  reasonably  demand,  and  he 
agreed  with  Aranda  that  they  had  as  yet  gained  no  foothold 
upon  the  eastern  bank  of  the  great  river,  unmindful  of  the 


2O 


THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 


fact  that  at  that  very  moment  the  fortresses  at  Cahokia  and 
Kaskaskia  were  occupied  by  Virginian  garrisons. 

Upon  another  important  point  the  views  of  the  French 

government  were  directly  opposed   to  American   interests. 

The  right  to  catch  fish  on  the  banks  of  Newfound- 

The  New- 

foundiand  land  had  been  shared  by  treaty  between  France 
and  England  ;  and  the  New  England  fishermen, 
as  subjects  of  the  king  of  Great  Britain,  had  participated  in 
this  privilege.  The  matter  was  of  very  great  importance, 
not  only  to  New  England,  but  to  the  United  States  in 
general.  Not  only  were  the  fisheries  a  source  of  lucrative 
trade  to  the  New  England  people,  but  they  were  the  training- 
school  of  a  splendid  race  of  seamen,  the  nursery  of  naval 
heroes  whose  exploits  were  by  and  by  to  astonish  the  world. 
To  deprive  the  Americans  of  their  share  in  these  fisheries 
was  to  strike  a  serious  blow  at  the  strength  and  resources 
of  the  new  nation.  The  British  government  was  not  inclined 
to  grant  the  privilege,  and  on  this  point  Vergennes  took 
sides  with  England,  in  order  to  establish  a  claim  upon  her 
for  concessions  advantageous  to  France  in  some  other  quar 
ter.  With  these  views,  Vergennes  secretly  aimed  at  delaying 
the  negotiations  ;  for  as  long  as  hostilities  were  kept  up,  he 
might  hope  to  extort  from  his  American  allies  a  recognition 
of  the  Spanish  claims  and  a  renouncement  of  the  fisheries, 
simply  by  threatening  to  send  them  no  further  assistance 
in  men  or  money.  In  order  to  retard  the  proceedings,  he 
refused  to  take  any  steps  whatever  until  the  independence  of 
the  United  States  should  first  be  irrevocably  acknowledged 
by  Great  Britain,  without  reference  to  the  final  settlement  of 
the  rest  of  the  treaty.  In  this  Vergennes  was  supported  by 
Franklin,  as  well  as  by  Jay,  who  had  lately  arrived  in  Paris 
to  take  part  in  the  negotiations.  But  the  reasons  of  the 
American  commissioners  were  very  different  from  those  of 
Vergennes.  They  feared  that,  if  they  began  to  treat  before 
independence  was  acknowledged,  they  would  be  unfairly  dealt 
with  by  France  and  Spain,  and  unable  to  gain  from  England 
the  concessions  upon  which  they  were  determined. 


Longitude        West 


MAP   OF   NORTH    AMERICA, 

Showing  the  Boundaries  of  the  UNITED   STATES,  CANADA,  and  the  SPANISH    POSSES 
SIONS    according  to  the  proposals  of  the  Court  of  France  in  I  782. 


1782  RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN  21 

Jay  soon  began  to  suspect  the  designs  of  the  French  min 
ister.  He  found  that  he  was  sending  M.  de  Rayneval  as  a 
secret  emissary  to  Lord  Shelburne  under  an  assumed  name  ; 
he  ascertained  that  the  right  of  the  United  States  to  the 
Mississippi  valley  was  to  be  denied  ;  and  he  got  hold  of  a 
dispatch  from  Marbois,  the  French  secretary  of  legation  at 
Philadelphia,  to  Vergennes,  opposing  the  American  jay  detects 
claim  to  the  Newfoundland  fisheries.  As  soon  as 
Jay  learned  these  facts,  he  sent  his  friend  Dr.  Ben- 
jamin  Vaughan  to  Lord  Shelburne  to  put  him  on  his  guard, 
and  while  reminding  him  that  it  was  greatly  for  the  interest 
of  England  to  dissolve  the  alliance  between  America  and 
France,  he  declared  himself  ready  to  begin  the  negotiations 
without  waiting  for  the  recognition  of  independence,  pro 
vided  that  Oswald's  commission  should  speak  of  the  thirteen 
United  States  of  America,  instead  of  calling  them  colonies 
and  naming  them  separately.  This  decisive  step  was  taken 
by  Jay  on  his  own  responsibility,  and  without  the  knowledge 
of  Franklin,  who  had  been  averse  to  anything  like  a  separate 
negotiation  with  England.  It  served  to  set  the  ball  rolling 
at  once.  After  meeting  the  messengers  from  Jay  and  Ver 
gennes,  Lord  Shelburne  at  once  perceived  the  antagonism 
that  had  arisen  between  the  allies,  and  promptly  took  advan 
tage  of  it.  A  new  commission  was  made  out  for  Oswald,  in 
which  the  British  government  first  described  our  country  as 
the  United  States  ;  and  early  in  October  negotiations  were 
begun  and  proceeded  rapidly.  On  the  part  of  England,  the 
affair  was  conducted  by  Oswald,  assisted  by  Strachey  and 
Fitzherbert,  who  had  succeeded  Grenville.  In  the  course  of 
the  month  John  Adams  arrived  in  Paris,  and  a  few  weeks 
later  Henry  Laurens,  who  had  been  exchanged  for  Lord 
Cornwallis  and  released  from  the  Tower,  was  added  to  the 
company.  Adams  had  a  holy  horror  of  Frenchmen  in  gen 
eral,  and  of  Count  Vergennes  in  particular.  He  shared  that 
common  but  grossly  mistaken  view  of  Frenchmen  which 
regards  them  as  shallow,  frivolous,  and  insincere ;  and  he 
was  indignant  at  the  position  taken  by  Vergennes  on  the 


22  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

question  of  the  fisheries.  In  this,  John  Adams  felt  as  all 
New  Englanders  felt,  and  he  realized  the  importance  of  the 
question  from  a  national  point  of  view,  as  became  the  man 
who  in  later  years  was  to  earn  lasting  renown  as  one  of  the 
chief  founders  of  the  American  navy.  His  behaviour  on 
reaching  Paris  was  characteristic.  It  is  said  that  he  left 
Count  Vergennes  to  learn  of  his  arrival  through  the  news 
papers.  It  was  certainly  some  time  before  he  called  upon 
him,  and  he  took  occasion,  besides,  to  express  his  opinions 
about  republics  and  monarchies  in  terms  which  courtly 
Frenchmen  thought  very  rude. 

The  arrival  of  Adams  fully  decided  the  matter  as  to  a 
separate  negotiation  with  England.  He  agreed  with  Jay 
that  Vergennes  should  be  kept  as  far  as  possible  in  the  dark 
until  everything  was  cut  and  dried,  and  Franklin  was  reluc 
tantly  obliged  to  yield.  The  treaty  of  alliance  between 
France  and  the  United  States  had  expressly  stipulated  that 
Franklin  neither  power  should  ever  make  peace  without  the 
byejay  and  consent  of  the  other,  and  in  view  of  this  Franklin 
Adams  was  loath  to  do  anything  which  might  seem  like 
abandoning  the  ally  whose  timely  interposition  had  alone 
enabled  Washington  to  achieve  the  crowning  triumph  of 
Yorktown.  In  justice  to  Vergennes,  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  he  had  kept  strict  faith  with  us  in  regard  to  every 
point  that  had  been  expressly  stipulated  ;  and  Franklin,  who 
felt  that  he  understood  Frenchmen  better  than  his  colleagues, 
was  naturally  unwilling  to  seem  behindhand  in  this  respect. 
At  the  same  time,  in  regard  to  matters  not  expressly  stipu 
lated,  Vergennes  was  clearly  playing  a  sharp  game  against 
us ;  and  it  is  undeniable  that,  without  departing  technically 
from  the  obligations  of  the  alliance,  Jay  and  Adams  —  two 
men  as  honourable  as  ever  lived  —  played  a  very  sharp  de 
fensive  game  against  him.  The  traditional  French  subtlety 
was  no  match  for  Yankee  shrewdness.  The  treaty  with 
England  was  not  concluded  until  the  consent  of  France 
had  been  obtained,  and  thus  the  express  stipulation  was  re 
spected  ;  but  a  thorough  and  detailed  agreement  was  reached 


I78z  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  23 

as  to  what  the  purport  of  the  treaty  should  be,  while  our 
not  too  friendly  ally  was  kept  in  the  dark.  The  annals  of 
modern  diplomacy  have  afforded  few  stranger  spectacles. 
With  the  indispensable  aid  of  France  we  had  just  got  the 
better  of  England  in  fight,  and  now  we  proceeded  amicably 
to  divide  territory  and  commercial  privileges  with  the  enemy, 


and  to  make  arrangements  in  which  the  ally  was  virtually 
ignored.  It  ceases  to  be  a  paradox,  however,  when  we 
remember  that  with  the  change  of  government  in  England 
some  essential  conditions  of  the  case  were  changed.  The 
England  against  which  we  had  fought  was  the  hostile  Eng 
land  of  Lord  North  ;  the  England  with  which  we  were  now 
dealing  was  the  friendly  England  of  Shelburne  and  Pitt. 


24  THE.  CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

For  the  moment,  the  English  race,  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  was  united  in  its  main  purpose  and  divided  only  by 
questions  of  detail,  while  the  rival  colonizing  power,  which 
sought  to  work  in  a  direction  contrary  to  the  general  in 
terests  of  English-speaking  people,  was  in  great  measure 
disregarded. 

As  soon  as  the  problem  was  thus  virtually  reduced  to  a 
negotiation  between  the  American  commissioners  and  Lord 
Shelburne's  ministry,  the  air  was  cleared  in  a  moment. 
The  principal  questions  had  already  been  discussed  between 
Franklin  and  Oswald.  Independence  being  first  acknow 
ledged,  the  question  of  boundaries  came  up  for  settlement. 
Thesepa-  England  had  little  interest  in  regaining  the  terri- 
ra!f  treat5""  ^or^  ^etween  tne  Alleghanies  and  the  Mississippi, 
as  agreed'  the  forts  in  which  were  already  held  by  American 
Bounda'-'  soldiers,  and  she  relinquished  all  claim  upon  it. 
The  Mississippi  River  thus  became  the  dividing 
line  between  the  United  States  and  the  Spanish  possessions, 
and  its  navigation  was  made  free  alike  to  British  and  Amer 
ican  ships.  Franklin's  suggestion  of  a  cession  of  Canada 
and  Nova  Scotia  was  abandoned  without  discussion.  It  was 
agreed  that  the  boundary  line  should  start  at  the  mouth  of 
the  river  St.  Croix,  and,  running  to  a  point  near  Lake  Mada- 
waska  in  the  highlands  separating  the  Atlantic  watershed 
from  that  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  shguld  follow  these  highlands 
to  the  head  of  the  Connecticut  River,  and  then  descend  the 
middle  of  the  river  to  the  forty-fifth  parallel,  thence  running 
westward  and  through  the  centre  of  the  water  communica 
tions  of  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  thence 
to  the  source  of  the  Mississippi,  which  was  supposed  to  be 
west  of  this  lake.  This  line  was  marked  in  red  ink  by 
Oswald  on  one  of  Mitchell's  maps  of  North  America,  to 
serve  as  a  memorandum  establishing  the  precise  meaning  of 
the  words  used  in  the  description.  It  ought  to  have  been 
accurately  fixed  in  its  details  by  surveys  made  upon  the 
spot ;  but  no  commissioners  were  appointed  for  this  purpose. 
The  language  relating  to  the  northeastern  portion  of  the 


1782 


RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN 


BOUNDARY    MONUMENT    ON    THE    ST.    CROIX 

boundary  contained  some  inaccuracies  which  were  revealed 
by  later  surveys,  and  the  map  used  by  Oswald  was  lost. 
Hence  a  further  question  arose  between  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States,  which  was  finally  settled  by  the  Ashbur- 
ton  treaty  in  1842. 

The  Americans  retained  the  right  of  catching  fish  on  the 
banks  of  Newfoundland  and  in  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence, 
but  lost  the  right  of  drying  their  fish  on  the  New-    2.  Fisher- 
foundland  coast.     On  the  other  hand,  no   permis-   mer'ciaT" 
sion  was  given  to  British  subjects  to  fish  on  the    intercourse 
coasts  of  the  United  States.     As  regarded  commercial  inter- 


26  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP.  I 

course,  Jay  sought  to  establish  complete  reciprocal  freedom 
between  the  two  countries,  and  a  clause  was  proposed  to 
the  effect  that  "  all  British  merchants  and  merchant  ships, 
on  the  one  hand,  shall  enjoy  in  the  United  States,  and  in  all 
places  belonging  to  them,  the  same  protection  and  commer 
cial  privileges,  and  be  liable  only  to  the  same  charges  and 
duties  as  their  own  merchants  and  merchant  ships ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  merchants  and  merchant  ships  of  the 
United  States  shall  enjoy  in  all  places  belonging  to  his  Bri 
tannic  Majesty  the  same  protection  and  commercial  privi 
leges,  and  be  liable  only  to  the  same  charges  and  duties  as 
British  merchants  and  merchant  ships,  saving  always  to  the 
chartered  trading  companies  of  Great  Britain  such  exclusive 
use  and  trade,  and  the  respective  ports  and  establishments, 
as  neither  the  other  subjects  of  Great  Britain  nor  any  the 
most  favoured  nation  participate  in."  Unfortunately  for 
both  countries,  this  liberal  provision  was  rejected  on  the 
ground  that  the  ministry  had  no  authority  to  interfere  with 
the  Navigation  Act. 

Only  two  questions  were  now  left  to  be  disposed  of,  —  the 
question  of  paying  private  debts,  and  that  of  compensating 
the  American  loyalists  for  the  loss  of  property  and  general 
rough  treatment  which  they  had  suffered.  There  were  many 
3.  Private  old  debts  outstanding  from  American  to  "British 
merchants.  These  had  been  for  the  most  part 
incurred  before  1775,  and  while  many  honest  debtors,  im 
poverished  during  the  war,  felt  unable  to  pay,  there  were 
doubtless  many  others  who  were  ready  to  take  advantage  of 
circumstances  and  refuse  the  payment  which  they  were  per 
fectly  able  to  make.  It  was  scarcely  creditable  to  us  that 
any  such  question  should  have  arisen.  Franklin,  indeed, 
argued  that  these  debts  were  more  than  fully  offset  by  dam 
ages  done  to  private  property  by  British  soldiers :  as,  for 
example,  in  the  wanton  raids  on  the  coasts  of  Connecticut 
and  Virginia  in  1779,  or  in  Prevost's  buccaneering  march 
against  Charleston.  To  cite  these  atrocities,  however,  as  a 
reason  for  the  non-payment  of  debts  legitimately  owed  to 


28  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

inflicted  no  disabilities  upon  his  political  enemies  ;  and  when 
Charles  II.  was  restored  to  the  throne  the  healing  effect  of 
the  amnesty  act  then  passed  was  so  great  that  historians 
sometimes  ask  what  in  the  world  had  become  of  that  Puri 
tan  party  which  a  moment  before  had  seemed  supreme  in 
the  land.  At  the  close  of  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succes 
sion,  the  rebellious  people  of  Catalonia  were  indemnified  for 
their  losses,  at  the  request  of  England,  and  with  a  similar 
good  effect.  In  view  of  such  European  precedents,  Ver- 
gennes  agreed  with  Shelburne  as  to  the  propriety  of  secur 
ing  compensation  and  further  immunity  for  the  Tories  in 
America.  John  Adams  insinuated  that  the  French  minister 
took  this  course  because  he  foresaw  that  the  presence  of  the 
Tories  in  the  United  States  would  keep  the  people  perpetu 
ally  divided  into  a  French  party  and  an  English  party  ;  but 
such  a  suspicion  was  quite  uncalled  for.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  in  this  instance  Vergennes  had  anything  at 
heart  but  the  interests  of  humanity  and  justice. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Americans  brought  forward  very 
strong  reasons  why  the  Tories  should  not  be  indemnified  by 
Congress.  First,  as  Franklin  urged,  many  of  them  had,  by 
their  misrepresentations  to  the  British  government,  helped 
to  stir  up  the  disputes  which  led  to  the  war;  and  as  they 
had  made  their  bed,  so  they  must  lie  in  it.  Secondly,  such 
of  them  as  had  been  concerned  in  burning  and  plundering 
defenceless  villages,  and  wielding  the  tomahawk  in  concert 
with  bloodthirsty  Indians,  deserved  no  compassion.  It  was 
rather  for  them  to  make  compensation  for  the  misery  they 
had  wrought.  Thirdly,  the  confiscated  Tory  property  had 
passed  into  the  hands  of  purchasers  who  had  bought  it  in 
good  faith  and  could  not  now  be  dispossessed,  and  in  many 
cases  it  had  been  distributed  here  and  there  and  lost  sight 
of.  An  estimate  of  the  gross  amount  might  be  made,  and 
a  corresponding  sum  appropriated  for  indemnification.  But, 
fourthly,  the  country  was  so  impoverished  by  the  war  that  its 
own  soldiers,  the  brave  men  whose  heroic  exertions  had  won 
the  independence  of  the  United  States,  were  at  this  moment 


I782  RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN  29 

in  sore  distress  for  the  want  of  the  pay  which  Congress 
could  not  give  them,  but  to  which  its  honour  was  sacredly 
pledged.  The  American  government  was  clearly  bound  to 
pay  its  just  debts  to  the  friends  who  had  suffered  so  much  in 
its  behalf  before  it  should  proceed  to  entertain  a  chimerical 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

scheme  for  satisfying  its  enemies.  For,  fifthly,  any  such 
scheme  was  in  the  present  instance  clearly  chimerical. 
The  acts  under  which  Tory  property  had  been  confiscated 
were  acts  of  state  legislatures,  and  Congress  had  no  juris 
diction  over  such  a  matter.  If  restitution  was  to  be  made, 
it  must  be  made  by  the  separate  states.  The  question  could 
not  for  a  moment  be  entertained  by  the  general  government 
or  its  agents. 

Upon   these   points   the    American   commissioners   were 
united  and  inexorable.     Various  suggestions  were  offered  in 


3o  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

vain  by  the  British.     Their  troops  still  held  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  Americans  could  hope 
to  capture  it  in  another  campaign.     It  was  urged  that  Eng 
land  might  fairly  claim  in  exchange  for  New  York  a  round 
sum  of  money  wherewith  the  Tories  might  be  indemnified. 
It  was  further  urged  that  certain  unappropriated  lands  in  the 
Mississippi  valley  might  be  sold  for  the  same  purpose.     But 
the  Americans  would  not  hear  of  buying  one  of  their  own 
cities,  whose  independence  was  already  acknowledged  by  the 
first  article  of  the  treaty  which  recognized  the  independence 
of  the  United  States  ;  and  as  for  the  western  lands,  they 
were  wanted  as  a  means  of  paying  our  own  war  debts  and 
providing  for  our  veteran  soldiers.     Several  times  Shelburne 
sent  word  to  Paris  that  he  would  break  off  the  negotiation 
unless   the   loyalist    claims  were  in  some   way   recognized. 
But  the  Americans  were  obdurate.     They  had  one  advan 
tage,  and  knew  it.     Parliament  was  soon  to  meet,  and  it  was 
doubtful  whether  Lord  Shelburne  could   command  a  suffi 
cient  majority  to  remain  long  in  office.     He  was,  accord 
ingly,  very  anxious  to  complete  the  treaty  of  peace,  or  at 
least  to  detach  America  from  the  French  alliance,  as  soon 
as  possible.     The  American  commissioners  were  also  eager 
to  conclude  the  treaty.     They  had  secured  very  favourable 
terms,  and  were  loath  to  run  any  risk  of  spoiling  what  had 
been  done.     Accordingly,  they  made  a  proposal  in  the  form 
of   a  compromise,  which  nevertheless  settled   the  point   in 
their  favour.     The  matter,  they  said,  was  beyond  the  juris 
diction  of  Congress,  but  they  agreed  that  Congress  should 
recommend  to  the  several  states  to  desist  from  further  pro 
ceedings  against  the  Tories,  and  to   reconsider  their  laws 
on  this  subject  ;  it  should  further  recommend  that  persons 
with  claims  upon  confiscated  lands  might  be  authorized  to 
use  legal  means  of  recovering  them,  and  to  this  end  might 
be  allowed  to  pass  to  and  fro  without  personal  risk  for  the 
term  of  one  year.     The  British  commissioners  accepted  this 
compromise,  unsatisfactory  as  it  was,  because  it  was  really 
impossible  to  obtain  anything  better  without  throwing  the 


1782 


RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN 


33 


further  warfare  in  which  European  powers  would  have  been 
involved  ;  and  the  formation  of  our  Federal  Union  would 
doubtless  have  been  effectively  hindered,  if  not,  indeed,  alto 
gether  prevented.  To  the  grand  triumph  the  varied  talents 
of  Franklin,  Adams,  and  Jay  alike  contributed.  To  the 


latter  is  due  the  credit  of  detecting  and  baffling  the  sinister 
designs  of  France ;  but  without  the  tact  of  Franklin  this 
probably  could  not  have  been  accomplished  without  offend 
ing  France  in  such  wise  as  to  spoil  everything.  It  is,  how 
ever,  to  the  rare  discernment  and  boldness  of  Jay,  admirably 
seconded  by  the  sturdy  Adams,  that  the  chief  praise  is  due. 
The  turning-point  of  the  whole  affair  was  the  visit  of  Dr. 
Vaughan  to  Lord  Shelburne.  The  foundation  of  success 


34  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

was  the  separate  negotiation  with  England,  and  here  there 
had  stood  in  the  way  a  more  formidable  obstacle  than  the 
mere  reluctance  of  Franklin.  The  chevalier  Luzerne  and  his 
secretary  Marbois  had  been  busy  with  Congress,  and  that 
body  had  sent  well-meant  but  silly'and  pusillanimous  instruc 
tions  to  its  commissioners  at  Paris  to  be  guided  in  all  things 
by  the  wishes  of  the  French  court.  To  disregard  such  in 
structions  required  all  the  lofty  courage  for  which  Jay  and 
Adams  were  noted,  and  for  the  moment  it  brought  upon 
them  something  like  a  rebuke  from  Congress,  conveyed  in  a 
letter  from  Robert  Livingston.  As  Adams  said,  in  his  vehe 
ment  way,  "  Congress  surrendered  their  own  sovereignty 
into  the  hands  of  a  French  minister.  Blush  !  blush  !  ye 
guilty  records  !  blush  and  perish  !  It  is  glory  to  have  broken 
such  infamous  orders."  True  enough;  the  commissioners 
knew  that  in  diplomacy,  as  in  warfare,  to  the  agent  at  a 
distance  from  his  principal  some  discretionary  power  must 
be  allowed.  They  assumed  great  responsibility,  and  won  a 
victory  of  incalculable  grandeur. 

The  course  of  the  Americans  produced  no  effect  upon  the 
terms  obtained  by  France,  but  it  seriously  modified  the  case 
The  Span-  with  Spain.  Unable  to  obtain  Gibraltar  by  arms, 
ish  treaty  ^^  pOwer  hoped  to  get  it  by  diplomacy  ;  and  with 
the  support  of  France  she  seemed  disposed  to  make  the 
cession  of  the  great  fortress  an  ultimatum,  without  which 
the  war  must  go  on.  Shelburne,  on  his  part,  was  willing  to 
exchange  Gibraltar  for  an  island  in  the  West  Indies  ;  but  it 
was  difficult  to  get  the  cabinet  to  agree  on  the  matter,  and 
the  scheme  was  violently  opposed  by  the  people,  for  the 
heroic  defence  of  the  stronghold  had  invested  it  with  a  halo 
of  romance  and  endeared  it  to  every  one.  Nevertheless,  so 
persistent  was  Spain,  and  so  great  the  desire  for  peace  on 
the  part  of  the  ministry,  that  they  had  resolved  to  exchange 
Gibraltar  for  Guadaloupe,  when  the  news  arrived  of  the 
treaty  with  America.  The  ministers  now  took  a  bold  stand, 
and  refused  to  hear  another  word  about  giving  up  Gibraltar. 
Spain  scolded,  and  threatened  a  renewal  of  hostilities,  but 


1782  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  35 

France  was  unwilling  to  give  further  assistance,  and  the  mat 
ter  was  settled  by  England's  surrendering  East  Florida,  and 
allowing  the  Spaniards  to  keep  West  Florida  and  Minorca, 
which  were  already  in  their  hands. 

By  the  treaty  with  France,   the  West   India  islands  of 
Grenada,  St.  Vincent,  St.  Christopher,  Dominica,  Nevis,  and 
Montserrat  were  restored  to  England,  which  in  turn 
restored  St.  Lucia  and  ceded  Tobago  to  France.    French 
The  French  were  allowed  to  fortify  Dunkirk,  and 
received  some  slight  concessions  in  India  and  Africa ;  they 


retained  their  share  in  the  Newfoundland  fisheries,  and  re 
covered  the  little  neighbouring  islands  of  St.  Pierre  and 
Miquelon.  For  the  fourteen  hundred  million  francs  which 
France  had  expended  in  the  war,  she  had  the  satisfaction  of 
detaching  the  American  colonies  from  England,  thus  inflict- 


36  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

ing  a  blow  which  it  was  confidently  hoped  would  prove  fatal 
to  the  maritime  power  of  her  ancient  rival ;  but  beyond  this 
short-lived  satisfaction,  the  fallaciousness  of  which  events 
were  soon  to  show,  she  obtained  very  little.  On  the  2Oth 
of  January,  1783,  the  preliminaries  of  peace  were  signed 
between  England,  on  the  one  hand,  and  France  and  Spain, 
on  the  other.  A  truce  was  at  the  same  time  concluded  with 
Holland,  which  was  soon  followed  by  a  peace,  in  which  most 
of  the  conquests  on  either  side  were  restored. 

A  second  English  ministry  was  now  about  to  be  wrecked 
on  the  rock  of  this  group  of  treaties.  Lord  Shelburne's 
government  had  at  no  time  been  a  strong  one.  He  had 
made  many  enemies  by  his  liberal  and  reforming  measures, 
and  he  had  alienated  most  of  his  colleagues  by  his  reserved 
demeanour  and  seeming  want  of  confidence  in  them.  In 
December  several  of  the  ministers  resigned.  The  strength 
of  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  thus  quaintly  reck 
oned  by  Gibbon  :  "  Minister  140  ;  Reynard  90  ;  Boreas  120  ; 
the  rest  unknown  or  uncertain."  But  "Reynard"  and 
"  Boreas  "  were  now  about  to  join  forces  in  one  of  the  stran 
gest  coalitions  ever  known  in  the  history  of  politics. 
of  FOX  No  statesman  ever  attacked  another  more  fero 
ciously  than  Fox  had  attacked  North  during  the 
past  ten  years.  He  had  showered  abuse  upon  him  ;  accused 
him  of  "treachery  and  falsehood,"  of  "public  perfidy,"  and 
"breach  of  a  solemn  specific  promise  ;  "  and  had  even  gone 
so  far  as  to  declare  to  his  face  a  hope  that  he  would  be  called 
upon  to  expiate  his  abominable  crimes  upon  the  scaffold. 
Within  a  twelvemonth  he  had  thus  spoken  of  Lord  North 
and  his  colleagues  :  "  From  the  moment  when  I  shall  make 
any  terms  with  one  of  them,  I  will  rest  satisfied  to  be  called 
the  most  infamous  of  mankind.  I  would  not  for  an  instant 
think  of  a  coalition  with  men  who,  in  every  public  and  pri 
vate  transaction  as  ministers,  have  shown  themselves  void 
of  every  principle  of  honour  and  honesty.  In  the  hands  of 
such  men  I  would  not  trust  my  honour  even  for  a  moment." 
Still  more  recently,  when  at  a  loss  for  words  strong  enough 


1783 


RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN 


37 


to  express  his  belief  in  the  wickedness  of  Shelburne,  he 
declared  that  he  had  no  better  opinion  of  that  man  than  to 
deem  him  capable  of  forming  an  alliance  with  North.  We 
may  judge,  then,  of  the  general  amazement  when,  in  the 
middle  of  February,  it  turned  out  that  Fox  had  himself  done 
this  very  thing.  An  "ill-omened  marriage,"  William  Pitt 
called  it  in  the  House  of  Commons.  "If  this  ill-omened 
marriage  is  not  already  solemnized,  I  know  a  just  and  lawful 
impediment,  and  in  the  name  of  the  public  safety  I  here 
forbid  the  banns."  Throughout  the  country  the  indignation 
was  great.  Many  people  had  blamed  Fox  for  not  following 
up  his  charges  by  actually  bringing  articles  of  impeachment 
against  Lord  North.  That  the  two  enemies  should  thus 
suddenly  become  leagued  in  friendship  seemed  utterly  mon 
strous.  It  injured  Fox  extremely  in 
the  opinion  of  the  country,  and  it  in 
jured  North  still  more,  for  it  seemed 
like  a  betrayal  of  the  king  on  his  part, 
and  his  forgiveness  of  so  many  insults 
looked  mean-spirited.  It  does  not  ap 
pear,  however,  that  there  was  really 
any  strong  personal  animosity  between 
North  and  Fox.  They  were  both  men 
of  very  amiable  character,  and  almost 
incapable  of  cherishing  resentment. 
The  language  of  parliamentary  orators 
was  habitually  violent,  and  the  huge 
quantities  of  wine  which  gentlemen 
in  those  days  used  to  drink  may  have 

helped  to  make  it  extravagant.  The  excessive  vehemence 
of  political  invective  often  deprived  it  of  half  its  effect.  One 
day,  after  Fox  had  exhausted  his  vocabulary  of  abuse  upon 
Lord  George  Germain,  Lord  North  said  to  him,  "You  were 
in  very  high  feather  to-day,  Charles,  and  I  am  glad  you  did 
not  fall  upon  me."  On  another  occasion,  it  is  said  that 
while  Fox  was  thundering  against  North's  unexampled  tur 
pitude,  the  object  of  his  furious  tirade  cosily  dropped  off  to 


LORD    NORTH    AS    IGNAVIA 


38  THE  CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

sleep.  Gibbon,  who  was  the  friend  of  both  statesmen,  ex 
pressly  declares  that  they  bore  each  other  no  ill-will.  But 
while  thus  alike  indisposed  to  harbour  bitter  thoughts,  there 
was  one  man  for  whom  both  Fox  and  North  felt  an  abiding 
distrust  and  dislike ;  and  that  man  was  Lord  Shelburne,  the 
prime  minister. 

As  a  political  pupil  of  Burke,  Fox  shared  that  statesman's 
distrust  of  the  whole  school  of  Lord  Chatham,  to  which 
Shelburne  belonged.  In  many  respects  these  statesmen 
were  far  more  advanced  than  Burke,  but  they  did  not  suffi 
ciently  realize  the  importance  of  checking  the  crown  by 
means  of  a  united  and  powerful  ministry.  Fox  thoroughly 
understood  that  much  of  the  mischief  of  the  past  twenty 
years,  including  the  loss  of  America,  had  come  from  the 
system  of  weak  and  divided  ministries,  which  gave  the  king 
such  great  opportunity  for  wreaking  his  evil  will.  He  had 
himself  been  a  member  of  such  a  ministry,  which  had  fallen 
seven  months  ago.  When  the  king  singled  out  Shelburne 
for  his  confidence,  Fox  naturally  concluded  that  Shelburne 
was  to  be  made  to  play  the  royal  game,  as  North  had  been 
made  to  play  it  for  so  many  years.  This  was  very  unjust 
to  Shelburne,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  Fox  was  perfectly 
honest  in  his  belief.  It  seemed  to  him  that  the  present 
state  of  things  must  be  brought  to  an  end,  at  whatever  cost. 
A  ministry  strong  enough  to  curb  the  king  could  be  formed 
only  by  a  coalescence  of  two  out  of  the  three  existing  par 
ties.  A  coalescence  of  Old  and  New  Whigs  had  been  tried 
last  spring,  and  failed.  It  only  remained  now  to  try  the 
effect  of  a  coalescence  of  Old  Whigs  and  Tories. 

Such  was  doubtless  the  chief  .motive  of  Fox  in  this  ex 
traordinary  move.  The  conduct  of  North  seems  harder  to 
explain,  but  it  was  probably  due  to  a  reaction  of  feeling  on 
his  part.  He  had  done  violence  to  his  own  convictions  out 
of  weak  compassion  for  George  III.,  and  had  carried  on  the 
American  war  for  four  years  after  he  had  been  thoroughly 
convinced  that  peace  ought  to  be  made.  Remorse  for  this 
is  said  to  have  haunted  him  to  the  end  of  his  life.  When  in 


THE    LORD    OF   THE    VINEYARD 


40  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

his  old  age  he  became  blind,  he  bore  his  misfortune  with  his 
customary  lightness  of  heart ;  and  one  day,  meeting  the 
veteran  Barre,  who  had  also  lost  his  eyesight,  he  exclaimed, 
with  his  unfailing  wit,  "  Well,  colonel,  in  spite  of  all  our  dif 
ferences,  I  suppose  there  are  no  two  men  in  England  who 
would  be  gladder  to  see  each  other  than  you  and  I."  But 
while  Lord  North  could  jest  about  his  blindness,  the  memory 
of  his  ill-judged  subservience  to  the  king  was  something  that 
he  could  not  laugh  away,  and  among  his  nearest  friends  he 
was  sometimes  heard  to  reproach  himself  bitterly.  When, 
therefore,  in  1783,  he  told  Fox  that  he  fully  agreed  with  him 
in  thinking  that  the  royal  power  ought  to  be  curbed,  he  was 
doubtless  speaking  the  truth.  No  man  had  a  better  right  to 
such  an  opinion  than  that  which  he  had  gained  through  sore 
experience.  In  his  own  ministry,  as  he  said  to  Fox,  he  took 
the  system  as  he  found  it,  and  had  not  vigour  and  resolution 
enough  to  put  an  end  to  it  ;  but  he  was  now  quite  convinced 
that  in  such  a  country  as  England,  while  the  king  should  be 
treated  with  all  outward  show  of  respect,  he  ought  on  no 
account  to  be  allowed  to  exercise  any  real  power. 

Now  this  was  in  1783  the  paramount  political  question  in 
England,  just  as  much  as  the  question  of  secession  was  para 
mount  in  the  United  States  in  1861.  Other  questions  could 
be  postponed  ;  the  question  of  curbing  the  king  could  not. 
Upon  this  all-important  point  North  had  come  to  agree  with 
Fox ;  and  as  the  principal  motive  of  their  coalition  may  be 
thus  explained,  the  historian  is  not  called  upon  to  lay  too 
much  stress  upon  the  lower  motives  assigned  in  profusion 
by  their  political  enemies.  This  explanation,  however,  does 
not  quite  cover  the  case.  The  mass  of  the  Tories  would 
never  follow  North  in  an  avowed  attempt  to  curb  the  king, 
but  they  agreed  with  the  followers  of  Fox,  though  not  with 
Fox  himself,  in  holy  horror  of  parliamentary  reform,  and 
were  alarmed  by  a  recent  declaration  of  Shelburne  that  the 
suffrage  must  be  extended  so  as  to  admit  a  hundred  new 
county  members.  Thus  while  the  two  leaders  were  urged 
to  coalescence  by  one  motive,  their  followers  were  largely 


1783  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  41 

swayed  by  another,  and  this  added  much  to  the  mystery  and 
general  unintelligibleness  of  the  movement.  In  taking  this 
step  Fox  made  the  mistake  which  was  characteristic  of  the 
Old  Whig  party.  He  gave  too  little  heed  to  the  great 
public  outside  the  walls  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The 


coalition,  once  made,  was  very  strong  in  Parliament,  but  it 
mystified  and  scandalized  the  people,  and  this  popular  disap 
proval  by  and  by  made  it  easy  for  the  king  to  overthrow  it. 

It  was  agreed  to  choose  the  treaty  as  the  occasion  for  the 
combined  attack  upon  the  Shelburne  ministry.  North,  as 
the  minister  who  had  conducted  the  unsuccessful  war,  was 
bound  to  oppose  the  treaty,  in  any  case.  It  would  not  do 
for  him  to  admit  that  better  terms  could  not  have 

Fall  of 

been  made.     The  treaty  was  also  very  unpopular  sheibume's 

with  Fox's  party,  and  with  the  nation  at  large.     It 

was  thought  that  too  much  territory  had  been  conceded  to 


42  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

the  Americans,  and  fault  was  found  with  the  article  on  the 
fisheries.  But  the  point  which  excited  most  indignation  was 
the  virtual  abandonment  of  the  loyalists,  for  here  the  honour 
of  England  was  felt  to  be  at  stake.  On  this  ground  the 
treaty  was  emphatically  condemned  by  Burke,  Sheridan,  and 
Wilberforce,  no  less  than  by  North.  It  was  ably  defended 
in  the  Commons  by  Pitt,  and  in  the  Lords  by  Shelburne 
himself,  who  argued  that  he  had  but  the  alternative  of  ac 
cepting  the  terms  as  they  stood,  or  continuing  the  war  ;  and 
since  it  had  come  to  this,  he  said,  without  spilling  a  drop  of 
blood,  or  incurring  one  fifth  of  the  expense  of  a  year's  cam 
paign,  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  the  American  loyalists 
could  be  easily  secured.  By  this  he  meant  that,  should 
America  fail  to  make  good  their  losses,  it  was  far  better  for 
England  to  indemnify  them  herself  than  to  prolong  indefi 
nitely  a  bloody  and  ruinous  struggle.  As  we  shall  hereafter 
see,  this  liberal  and  enlightened  policy  was  the  one  which 
England  really  pursued,  so  far  as  practicable,  and  her  honour 
was  completely  saved.  That  Shelburne  and  Pitt  were  quite 
right  there  can  now  be  little  doubt.  But  argument  was  of  no 
avail  against  the  resistless  power  of  the  coalition.  On  the 
i /th  of  February  Lord  John  Cavendish  moved  an  amend 
ment  to  the  ministerial  address  on  the  treaty,  refusing  to 
approve  it.  On  the  2ist  he  moved  a  further  amendment 
condemning  the  treaty.  Both  motions  were  carried,  and 
on  the  24th  Lord  Shelburne  resigned.  He  did  not  dissolve 
Parliament  and  appeal  to  the  country,  partly  because  he 
was  aware  of  his  personal  unpopularity,  and  partly  because, 
in  spite  of  the  general  disgust  at  the  coalition,  there  was  little 
doubt  that  on  the  particular  question  of  the  treaty  the  pub 
lic  opinion  agreed  with  the  majority  in  Parliament,  and  not 
with  the  ministry.  For  this  reason,  Pitt,  though  personally 
popular,  saw  that  it  was  no  time  for  him  to  take  the  first 
place  in  the  government,  and  when  the  king  proceeded  to 
offer  it  to  him  he  declined. 

For  more  than  five  weeks,  while  the  treasury  was  nearly 
empty,  and  the  question  of  peace  or  war  still  hung  in  the 


American  Peace  Commissioners 


1 783 


RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN 


43 


balance,  England  was  without  a  regular  government,  while 
the  angry  king  went  hunting  for  some  one  who  would  con 
sent  to  be  his  prime,  minister.  He  was  determined  not  to 
submit  to  the  coalition.  He  was  naturally  enraged  The  king's 
at  Lord  North  for  turning  against  him.  Meeting  wrath 
one  day  North's  father,  Lord  Guilford,  he  went  up  to  him, 
tragically  wringing  his  hands,  and  exclaimed  in  accents  of 
woe,  "  Did  I  ever  think,  my  Lord  Guilford,  that  your  son 
would  thus  have  betrayed  me  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Fox?" 
He  appealed  in  vain  to  Lord  Gower,  and  then  to  Lord 
Temple,  to  form  a  ministry.  Lord  Gower  suggested  that 


FACSIMILE   SIGNATURES    OF   THE    TREATY    OF    PEACE 


44  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

perhaps  Thomas  Pitt,  cousin  of  William,  might  be  willing  to 
serve.  "I  desired  him,"  said  the  king,  "to  apply  to  Mr. 
Thomas  Pitt,  or  Mr.  Thomas  anybody."  It  was  of  no  use. 
By  the  2d  of  April  Parliament  had  become  furious  at  the 
delay,  and  George  was  obliged  to  yield.  The  Duke  of 
Portland  was  brought  in  as  nominal  prime  minister,  with  Fox 
as  foreign  secretary,  North  as  secretary  for  home  and  colo 
nies,  Cavendish  as  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  and  Keppel 
as  first  lord  of  the  admiralty.  The  only  Tory  in  the  cabinet, 
excepting  North,  was  Lord  Stormont,  who  became  president 
of  the  council.  The  commissioners,  Fitzherbert  and  Oswald, 
were  recalled  from  Paris,  and  the  Duke  of  Manchester  and 
David  Hartley,  son  of  the  great  philosopher,  were  appointed 
in  their  stead.  Negotiations  continued  through  the  spring 
and  summer.  Attempts  were  made  to  change  some  of  the 
articles,  especially  the  obnoxious  article  concerning  the 
loyalists,  but  all  to  no  purpose.  Hartley's  attempt  to  nego 
tiate  a  mutually  advantageous  commercial  treaty  with 
America  also  unfortunately  came  to  nothing.  The 

The  treaty       ,    _     .   .  i  •    ,  /«       *<• 

is  adopted,  definitive  treaty  which  was  finally  signed  on  the 
theecoaaii-by  3d  of  September,  1783,  was  an  exact  transcript  of 
trynwhinch"  the  treatY  which  Shelbume  had  made,  and  for 
presently  making  which  the  present  ministers  had  succeeded 
in  turning  him  out  of  office.  No  more  emphatic 
justification  of  Shelburne's  conduct  of  this  business  could 
possibly  have  been  obtained. 

The  coalition  ministry  did  not  long  survive  the  final  sign 
ing  of  the  treaty.  The  events  of  the  next  few  months  are 
curiously  instructive  as  showing  the  quiet  and  stealthy  way 
in  which  a  political  revolution  may  be  consummated  in  a 
thoroughly  conservative  and  constitutional  country.  Early 
in  the  winter  session  of  Parliament  Fox  brought  in  his 
famous  bill  for  organizing  the  government  of  the  great 
empire  which  Clive  and  Hastings  had  built  up  in  India. 
Popular  indignation  at  the  ministry  had  been  strengthened 
by  its  adopting  the  same  treaty  of  peace  for  the  making  of 
which  it  had  assaulted  Shelburne  ;  and  now,  on  the  passage 


46  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

of  the  India  Bill  by  the  House  of  Commons,  there  was  a 
great  outcry.  Many  provisions  of  the  bill  were  exceedingly 
unpopular,  and  its  chief  object  was  alleged  to  be  the  concen 
tration  of  the  immense  patronage  of  India  into  the  hands 
of  the  old  Whig  families.  With  the  popular  feeling  thus 
warmly  enlisted  against  the  ministry,  George  III.  was  now 
emboldened  to  make  war  on  it  by  violent  means  ;  and,  ac 
cordingly,  when  the  bill  came  up  in  the  House  of  Lords,  he 
caused  it  to  be  announced,  by  Lord  Temple,  that  any  peer 
who  should  vote  in  its  favour  would  be  regarded  as  an  enemy 
by  the  king.  Four  days  later  the  House  of  Commons,  by 
a  vote  of  153  to  80,  resolved  that  "to  report  any  opinion, 
or  pretended  opinion,  of  his  majesty  upon  any  bill  or  other 
proceeding  depending  in  either  house  of  Parliament,  with  a 
view  to  influence  the  votes  of  the  members,  is  a  high  crime 
and  misdemeanour,  derogatory  to  the  honour  of  the  crown, 
a  breach  of  the  fundamental  privileges  of  Parliament,  and 
subversive  of  the  constitution  of  this  country."  A  more 
explicit  or  emphatic  defiance  to  the  king  would  have  been 
hard  to  frame.  Two  days  afterward  the  Lords  rejected 
the  India  Bill,  and  on  the  next  day,  the  i8th  of  December, 
George  turned  the  ministers  out  of  office. 

In  this  grave  constitutional  crisis  the  king  invited  William 

Pitt  to  form  a  government,  and  this  young  statesman,  who 

had    consistently   opposed    the  coalition,  now  saw  that  his 

hour  was  come.     He  was  more  than  any  one  else 

Constitu-  .    .      . 

tionai  crisis,  the  f  avountc  of  the  people.     Fox  s  political  reputa- 


tion  was  eclipsed,  and  North's  was  destroyed,  by 
tn£ir  unseemly  alliance.  People  were  sick  of  the 
Pitt,  May,  whole  state  of  things  which  had  accompanied  the 
American  war.  Pitt,  who  had  only  come  into 
Parliament  in  1780,  was  free  from  these  unpleasant  associa 
tions.  The  unblemished  purity  of  his  life,  his  incorruptible 
integrity,  his  rare  disinterestedness,  and  his  transcendent 
ability  in  debate  were  known  to  every  one.  As  the  worthy 
son  of  Lord  Chatham,  whose  name  was  associated  with  the 
most  glorious  moment  of  English  history,  he  was  peculiarly 


1783 


RESULTS    OF    YORKTOWN 


47 


dear  to  the  people.  His  position,  however,  on  taking 
supreme  office  at  the  instance  of  a  king  who  had  just  com 
mitted  an  outrageous  breach  of  the  constitution,  was  ex 
tremely  critical,  and  only  the  most  consummate  skill  could 
have  won  from  the  chaos  such  a  victory  as  he  was  about  to 


win.  When  he  became  first  lord  of  the  treasury  and  chan 
cellor  of  the  exchequer,  in  December,  1783,  he  had  barely 
completed  his  twenty-fifth  year.  All  his  colleagues  in  the 
new  cabinet  were  peers,  so  that  he  had  to  fight  single-handed 
in  the  Commons  against  the  united  talents  of  Burke  and 
Sheridan,  Fox  and  North  ;  and  there  was  a  heavy  majority 
against  him,  besides.  In  view  of  this  adverse  majority,  it 
was  Pitt's  constitutional  duty  to  dissolve  Parliament  and 
appeal  to  the  country.  But  Fox,  unwilling  to  imperil  his 
great  majority  by  a  new  election,  now  made  the  fatal  mistake 


48  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  i 

of  opposing  a  dissolution  ;  thus  showing  his  distrust  of  the 
people  and  his  dread  of  their  verdict.  With  consummate 
tact,  Pitt  allowed  the  debates  to  go  on  till  March,  and  then, 
when  the  popular  feeling  in  his  favour  had  grown  into  wild 
enthusiasm,  he  dissolved  Parliament.  In  the  general  elec 
tion  which  followed,  160  members  of  the  coalition  lost  their 
seats,  and  Pitt  obtained  the  greatest  majority  that  has  ever 
been  given  to  an  English  minister. 

Thus  was  completed  the  political  revolution  in  England 
which  was  set  on  foot  by  the  American  victory  at  York- 
town.  Its  full  significance  was  only  gradually  realized.  For 
the  moment  it  might  seem  that  it  was  the  king  who  had 
triumphed.  He  had  shattered  the  alliance  which  had  been 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  curbing  him,  and  the  result  of  the 
election  had  virtually  condoned  his  breach  of  the  constitution. 
This  apparent  victory,  however,  had  been  won  only  by  a 
Overthrow  direct  appeal  to  the  people,  and  all  its  advantages 
accrue(j  to  the  people,  and  not  to  George  III. 


Sersonalf        ^S    mgeni°us    System    of    weak    and    divided   minis- 

government  tries,  with  himself  for  balance-wheel,  was  destroyed. 
For  the  next  seventeen  years  the  real  ruler  of  England  was 
not  George  III.,  but  William  Pitt,  who,  with  his  great  popu 
lar  following,  wielded  such  a  power  as  no  English  sovereign 
had  possessed  since  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  The  political 
atmosphere  was  cleared  of  intrigue  ;  and  Fox,  in  the  legiti 
mate  attitude  of  leader  of  the  new  opposition,  entered  upon 
the  glorious  part  of  his  career.  There  was  now  set  in  motion 
that  great  work  of  reform  which,  hindered  for  a  while  by  the 
reaction  against  the  French  revolutionists,  won  its  decisive 
victory  in  1832.  Down  to  the  very  moment  at  which  Ameri 
can  and  British  history  begin  to  flow  in  distinct  and  separate 
channels,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  closely  they  are 
implicated  with  each  other.  The  victory  of  the  Americans 
not  only  set  on  foot  the  British  revolution  here  described,  but 
it  figured  most  prominently  in  each  of  the  political  changes 
that  we  have  witnessed,  down  to  the  very  eve  of  the  over- 


1784  RESULTS    OF   YORKTOWN  49 

throw  of  the  coalition.  The  system  which  George  III.  had 
sought  to  fasten  upon  America,  in  order  that  he  might  fasten 
it  upon  England,  was  shaken  off  and  shattered  by  the  good 
people  of  both  countries  at  almost  the  same  moment  of 
time. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 

"THE  times  that  tried  men's  souls  are  over,"  said  Thomas 
Paine  in  the  last  number  of  the  "  Crisis,"  which  he  published 
after  hearing  that  the  negotiations  for  a  treaty  of  peace  had 
been  concluded.  The  preliminary  articles  had  been  signed 
at  Paris  on  the  2Oth  of  January,  1783.  The  news  arrived  in 
America  on  the  23d  of  March,  in  a  letter  to  the  president 
of  Congress  from  Lafayette,  who  had  returned  to  France 
soon  after  the  victory  at  Yorktown.  A  few  days  later  Sir 
Guy  Carleton  received  his  orders  from  the  ministry  to  pro 
claim  a  cessation  of  hostilities  by  land  and  sea.  A  similar 
proclamation  made  by  Congress  was  formally  communicated 
to  the  army  by  Washington  on  the  iQth  of  April,  the  eighth 
anniversary  of  the  first  bloodshed  on  Lexington  green. 
Since  Wayne  had  driven  the  British  from  Georgia,  early  in 
the  preceding  year,  there  had  been  no  military  operations 
between  the  regular  armies.  Guerrilla  warfare  between 
Whig  and  Tory  had  been  kept  up  in  parts  of  South  Caro 
lina  and  on  the  frontier  of  New  York,  where  Thayendanegea 
was  still  alert  and  defiant ;  while  beyond  the  mountains  the 
tomahawk  and  scalping-knife  had  been  busy,  and  Washing 
ton's  old  friend  and  comrade,  Colonel  Crawford,  had  been 
scorched  to  death  by  the  firebrands  of  the  red  demons ;  but 
the  armies  had  sat  still,  awaiting  the  peace  which  every  one 
felt  sure  must  speedily  come.  After  Cornwallis's  surrender, 
Washington  marched  his  army  back  to  the  Hudson,  and 
established  his  headquarters  at  Newburgh.  Rochambeau 
followed  somewhat  later,  and  in  September  joined  the  Amer 
icans  on  the  Hudson  ;  but  in  December  the  French  army 
marched  to  Boston,  and  there  embarked  for  France.  After 


1783 


THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


5' 


the  formal  cessation  of  hostilities  on  the  igth  of  April,  1783, 
Washington  granted  furloughs  to  most  of  his  soldiers  ;  and 
these  weather-beaten  veterans  trudged  homeward  in  all  direc 
tions,  in  little  groups  of  four  or  five,  depending  largely  for 
their  subsistence  on  the  hospitality  of  the  farm-houses  along 


the  road.  Arrived  at  home,  their  muskets  were  hung  over 
the  chimney-piece  as  trophies  for  grandchildren  to  be  proud 
of,  the  stories  of  their  exploits  and  their  sufferings  became 
household  legends,  and  they  turned  the  furrows  and  drove 
the  cattle  to  pasture  just  as  in  the  "old  colony  times." 
Th'eir  furloughs  were  equivalent  to  a  full  discharge,  for  on 
the  3d  of  September  the  definitive  treaty  was  signed,  and 


5- 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  II 


FRAUNCES'S  TAVERN,  NEW  YORK 

the  country  was  at  peace.  On  the  3d  of  November  the 
DC  arture  armv  was  formally  disbanded,  and  on  the  25th  of 
of  the  Brit-  that  month  Sir  Guy  Carleton's  army  embarked  from 

ish  troops,  r«        1 1   -r»  •  •  i  •  MI  • 

NOV.  25,  New  York,  hmall  British  garrisons  still  remained 
in  the  frontier  posts  of  Ogdensburg,  Oswego,  Niag 
ara,  Erie,  Sandusky,  Detroit,  and  Mackinaw,  but  it  was 
understood  that  these  places  were  to  be  promptly  surren 
dered  to  the  United  States.  On  the  4th  of  December  a 
barge  waited  at  the  South  Ferry  in  New  York  to  carry  Gen 
eral  Washington  across  the  river  to  Paulus  Hook.  He  was 
going  to  Annapolis,  where  Congress  was  in  session,  in  order 
to  resign  his  command.  At  Fraunces's  Tavern,  near  the 
ferry,  he  took  leave  of  the  officers  who  so  long  had  shared 
his  labours.  One  after  another  they  embraced  their  beloved 
commander,  while  there  were  few  dry  eyes  in  the  company. 


1783 


THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


53 


They  followed  him  to  the  ferry,  and  watched  the  departing 
boat  with  hearts  too  full  for  words,  and  then  in  solemn 
silence  returned  up  the  street.  At  Philadelphia  he  handed 
to  the  comptroller  of  the  treasury  a  neatly  written  manu 
script,  containing  an  accurate  statement  of  his  expenses  in 
the  public  service  since  the  day  when  he  took  command  of 


the  army.  The  sums  which  Washington  had  thus  spent  out 
of  his  private  fortune  amounted  to  $64,315.  For  his  per 
sonal  services  he  declined  to  take  any  pay.  At  noon  of  the 
23d,  in  the  presence  of  Congress  and  of  a  throng  of  ladies 
and  gentlemen  at  Annapolis,  the  great  general  gave  Washi 
up  his  command,  and  requested  as  an  "indulgence"  ton  resigns 

r         n  -,  .         .  .  IT  ^  i     his  com- 

tO  be  allowed  to  retire  into  private  life.     General   mand, 

Mifflin,  who  during  the  winter  of  Valley  Forge  had   Dec>  23 
conspired  with  Gates  to  undermine  the  confidence  of  the 


54  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

people  in  Washington,  was  now  president  of  Congress,  and  it 
was  for  him  to  make  the  reply.  "You  retire,"  said  Mifflin, 
"  from  the  theatre  of  action  with  the  blessings  of  your  fel 
low-citizens,  but  the  glory  of  your  virtues  will  not  terminate 
with  your  military  command ;  it  will  continue  to  animate 
remotest  ages."  The  next  morning  Washington  hurried 
away  to  spend  Christmas  at  his  pleasant  home  at  Mount 
Vernon,  which,  save  for  a  few  hours  in  the  autumn  of  1781, 
he  had  not  set  eyes  on  for  more  than  eight  years.  His  estate 
had  suffered  from  his  long  absence,  and  his  highest  ambition 
was  to  devote  himself  to  its  simple  interests.  To  his  friends 
he  offered  unpretentious  hospitality.  "  My  manner  of  living 
is  plain,"  he  said,  "and  I  do  not  mean  to  be  put  out  of  it. 
A  glass  of  wine  and  a  bit  of  mutton  are  always  ready,  and 
such  as  will  be  content  to  partake  of  them  are  always  wel 
come.  Those  who  expect  more  will  be  disappointed."  To 
Lafayette  he  wrote  that  he  was  now  about  to  solace  himself 
with  those  tranquil  enjoyments  of  which  the  anxious  soldier 
and  the  weary  statesman  know  but  little.  "  I  have  not  only 
retired  from  all  public  employments,  but  I  am  retiring  within 
myself,  and  shall  be  able  to  view  the  solitary  walk  and  tread 
the  paths  of  private  life  with  heartfelt  satisfaction.  Envious 
of  none,  I  am  determined  to  be  pleased  with  all ;  and  this, 
my  dear  friend,  being  the  order  of  my  march,  I  will  move 
gently  down  the  stream  of  life  until  I  sleep  with  my  fathers." 
In  these  hopes  Washington  was  to  be  disappointed.  "All 
the  world  is  touched  by  his  republican  virtues,"  wrote  Lu- 
zerne  to  Vergennes,  "but  it  will  be  useless  for  him  to  try 
to  hide  himself  and  live  the  life  of  a  private  man  :  he  will 
always  be  the  first  citizen  of  the  United  States."  It  indeed 
required  no  prophet  to  foretell  that  the  American  people 
could  not  long  dispense  with  the  services  of  this  greatest  of 
citizens.  Washington  had  already  put  himself  most  expli 
citly  on  record  as  the  leader  of  the  men  who  were  urging  the 
people  of  the  United  States  toward  the  formation  of  a  more 
perfect  union.  The  great  lesson  of  the  war  had  not  been  lost 
on  him.  Bitter  experience  of  the  evils  attendant  upon  the 


1 783 


THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


55 


MOUNT    VEKNON 


weak  government  of  the  Continental  Congress  had  impressed 
upon  his  mind  the  urgent  necessity  of  an  immediate  and 
thorough  reform.  On  the  8th  of  June,  in  view  of  the  ap 
proaching  disbandment  of  the  army,  he  had  addressed  to  the 
governors  and  presidents  of  the  several  states  a  circular 
letter,  which  he  wished  to  have  regarded  as  his  legacy  to 
the  American  people.  In  this  letter  he  insisted  upon  four 
things  as  essential  to  the  very  existence  of  the  United  States 
as  an  independent  power.  First,  there  must  be  an 
indissoluble  union  of  all  the  states  under  a  single 
federal  government,  which  must  possess  the  power 
of  enforcing  its  decrees  ;  for  without  such  author- 
ity  it  would  be  a  government  only  in  name.  Sec 
ondly,  the  debts  incurred  by  Congress  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  on  the  war  and  securing  independence  must  be  paid 
to  the  uttermost  farthing.  Thirdly,  the  militia  system  must 
be  organized  throughout  the  thirteen  states  on  uniform  prin 
ciples.  Fourthly,  the  people  must  be  willing  to  sacrifice,  if 
need  be,  some  of  their  local  interests  to  the  common  weal  ; 
they  must  discard  their  local  prejudices,  and  regard  one 


acy"tofhe 


p 
Ju£e  8> 


56  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

another  as  fellow-citizens  of  a  common  country,  with  inter 
ests  in  the  deepest  and  truest  sense  identical. 

The  grandeur  of  Washington's  character,  his  heroic  ser 
vices,  and  his  utter  disinterestedness  had  given  him  such  a 
hold  upon  the  people  as  few  statesmen  known  to  history  have 
ever  possessed.  The  noble  and  sensible  words  of  his  circu 
lar  letter  were  treasured  up  in  the  minds  of  all  the  best 
people  in  the  country,  and  when  the  time  for  reforming  the 
weak  and  disorderly  government  had  come  it  was  again  to 
Washington  that  men  looked  as  their  leader  and  guide.  But 
that  time  had  not  yet  come.  Only  through  the  discipline  of 
perplexity  and  tribulation  could  the  people  be  brought  to 
realize  the  indispensable  necessity  of  that  indissoluble  union 
of  which  Washington  had  spoken.  Thomas  Paine  was  sadly 
mistaken  when,  in  the  moment  of  exultation  over  the  peace, 
he  declared  that  the  trying  time  was  ended.  The  most  trying 
time  of  all  was  just  beginning.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  period  of  five  years  following  the  peace  of  1783  was 
the  most  critical  moment  in  all  the  history  of  the  American 
people.  The  dangers  from  which  we  were  saved  in  1788 
were  even  greater  than  the  dangers  from  which  we  were 
saved  in  1865.  In  the  War  of  Secession  the  love  of  union 
had  come  to  be  so  strong  that  thousands  of  men  gave  up 
their  lives  for  it  as  cheerfully  and  triumphantly  as  the  mar- 
Absence  of  tyrs  °f  °lder  times,  who  sang  their  hymns  of  praise 
a  send-  even  while  their  flesh  was  withering  in  the  relent- 

ment  of 

union,  and    less  flames.     In  1783  the  love  of  union,  as  a  senti- 

consequent  r  ,   .    ,  ,  .    „     .        .       ,  . 

danger  of  ment  tor  which  men  would  ngnt,  had  scarcely  come 
into  existence  among  the  people  of  these  states. 
The  souls  of  the  men  of  that  day  had  not  been  thrilled  by 
the  immortal  eloquence  of  Webster,  nor  had  they  gained  the 
historic  experience  which  gave  to  Webster's  words  their 
meaning  and  their  charm.  They  had  not:  gained  control  of 
all  the  fairest  part  of  the  continent,  with  domains  stretching 
more  than  three  thousand  miles  from  ocean  to  ocean,  and  so 
situated  in  geographical  configuration  and  commercial  rela 
tions  as  to  make  the  very  idea  of  disunion  absurd,  save  for 


Washington  residing  his  Commission 


1 


1783  THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  57 

men  in  whose  minds  fanaticism  for  the  moment  usurped  the 
place  of  sound  judgment.  The  men  of  1783  dwelt  in  along, 
straggling  series  of  republics,  fringing  the  Atlantic  coast, 
bordered  on  the  north  and  south  and  west  by  two  European 
powers  whose  hostility  they  had  some  reason  to  dread.  But 
nine  years  had  elapsed  since,  in  the  first  Continental  Con 
gress,  they  had  begun  to  act  consistently  and  independently 
in  common,  under  the  severe  pressure  of  a  common  fear 
and  an  immediate  necessity  of  action.  Even  under  such  cir 
cumstances  the  war  had  languished  and  come  nigh  to  failure 
simply  through  the  difficulty  of  insuring  concerted  action. 
Had  there  been  such  a  government  that  the  whole  power  of 
the  thirteen  states  could  have  been  swiftly  and  vigorously 
wielded  as  a  unit,  the  British,  fighting  at  .such  disadvantage 
as  they  did,  might  have  been  driven  to  their  ships  in  less 
than  a  year.  The  length  of  the  war  and  its  worst  hardships 
had  been  chiefly  due  to  want  of  organization.  Congress  had 
steadily  declined  in  power  and  in  respectability  ;  it  was  much 
weaker  at  the  end  of  the  war  than  at  the  beginning ;  and 
there  was  reason  to  fear  that  as  soon  as  the  common  pres 
sure  was  removed  the  need  for  concerted  action  would  quite 
cease  to  be  felt,  and  the  scarcely  formed  Union  would  break 
into  pieces.  There  was  the  greater  reason  for  such  a  fear 
in  that,  while  no  strong  sentiment  had  as  yet  grown  up  in 
favour  of  union,  there  was  an  intensely  powerful  sentiment 
in  favour  of  local  self-government.  This  feeling  was  scarcely 
less  strong  as  between  states  like  Connecticut  and  Rhode 
Island,  or  Maryland  and  Virginia,  than  it  was  between 
Athens  and  Megara,  Argos  and  Sparta,  in  the  great  days  of 
Grecian  history.  A  most  wholesome  feeling  it  was,  and  one 
which  needed  not  so  much  to  be  curbed  as  to  be  guided  in 
the  right  direction.  It  was  a  feeling  which  was  shared  by 
some  of  the  foremost  Revolutionary  leaders,  such  as  Samuel 
Adams  and  Richard  Henry  Lee.  But  unless  the  most  pro 
found  and  delicate  statesmanship  should  be  forthcoming, 
to  take  this  sentiment  under  its  guidance,  there  was  much 
reason  to  fear  that  the  release  from  the  common  adhesion  to 


58  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 


u  BBS" 

•5 


Great  Britain  would  end  in  setting  up  thirteen  little  repub 
lics,  ripe  for  endless  squabbling,  like  the  republics  of  ancient 
Greece  and  mediaeval  Italy,  and  ready  to  become  the  prey 
of  England  and  Spain,  even  as  Greece  became  the  prey  of 
Macedonia. 

As  such  a  lamentable  result  was  dreaded  by  Washington, 
so  by  statesmen  in  Europe  it  was  generally  expected,  and  by 
our  enemies  it  was  eagerly  hoped  for.  Josiah  Tucker,  Dean 
of  Gloucester,  was  a  far-sighted  man  in  many  things  ;  but  he 


1783 


THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


59 


;*Hjifi* 

ifjlli" 


o 
1)    >• 


^  3 

1 


said,  "  As  to  the  future  grandeur  of  America,  and  its  being 
a  rising  empire  under  one  head,  whether  republican  or  mo 
narchical,  it  is  one  of  the  idlest  and  most  visionary  notions 
that  ever  was  conceived  even  by  writers  of  romance.  The 
mutual  antipathies  and  clashing  interests  of  the  Americans, 
their  difference  of  governments,  habitudes,  and  manners, 
indicate  that  they  will  have  no  centre  of  union  and  no  com 
mon  interest.  They  never  can  be  united  into  one  compact 
empire  under  any  species  of  government  whatever;  a  dis- 


60  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

united  people  till  the  end  of  time,  suspicious  and  distrustful 
of  each  other,  they  will  be  divided  and  subdivided  into  little 
commonwealths  or  principalities,  according  to  natural  bound 
aries,  by  great  bays  of  the  sea,  and  by  vast  rivers,  lakes, 
and  ridges  of  mountains."  Such  were  the  views  of  a  liberal- 
minded  philosopher  who  bore  us  no  ill-will.  George  III. 
said  officially  that  he  hoped  the  Americans  would  not  suffer 
from  the  evils  which  in  history  had  always  followed  the 
throwing  off  of  monarchical  government  :  which  meant,  of 
course,  that  he  hoped  they  would  suffer  from  such  evils. 
He  believed  we  should  get  into  such  a  snarl  that  the  several 
states,  one  after  another,  would  repent  and  beg  on  their 
knees  to  be  taken  back  into  the  British  empire.  Frederick 
of  Prussia,  though  friendly  to  the  Americans,  argued  that 
the  mere  extent  of  country  from  Maine  to  Georgia  would 
suffice  either  to  break  up  the  Union,  or  to  make  a  monarchy 
necessary.  No  republic,  he  said,  had  ever  long  existed  on 
so  great  a  scale.  The  Roman  republic  had  been 
historic  transformed  into  a  despotism  mainly  by  the  exces 
sive  enlargement  of  its  area.  It  was  only  little 
states,  like  Venice,  Switzerland,  and  Holland,  that  could 
maintain  a  republican  government.  Such  arguments  were 
common  enough  a  century  ago,  but  they  overlooked  three 
essential  differences  between  the  Roman  republic  and  the 
United  States.  The  Roman  republic  in  Caesar's  time  com 
prised  peoples  dif- 


perpetually  threat 
ened  on  all  its  frontiers  by  powerful  enemies  ;  and  repre 
sentative  assemblies  were  unknown  to  it.  The  only  free 
government  of  which  the  Roman  knew  anything  was  that  of 
the  primary  assembly  or  town  meeting.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  people  of  the  United  States  were  all  English  in  speech, 
and  mainly  English  in  blood.  The  differences  in  degree  of 


1783 


THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


6l 


civilization  between  such  states  as  Massachusetts  and  North 
Carolina  were  considerable,  but  in  comparison  with  such  dif 
ferences  as  those  between  Attika  and  Lusitania  they  might 
well  be  called  slight.  The  attacks  of  savages  on  the  fron 
tier  were  cruel  and  annoying,  but  never  since  the  time  of 
King  Philip  had  they  seemed  to  threaten  the  existence  of  the 


John  Fitch's  First  Rout   Pfrjtve  ranee 


or  4fe»  on  Ike  Dttan/arePhil*  I7J7  Sped  J  milts  an  Jit 


white  man.  A  very  small  military  establishment  was  quite 
enough  to  deal  with  the  Indians.  And  to  crown  all,  the 
American  people  were  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  principle 
of  representation,  having  practised  it  on  a  grand  scale  for 
more  than  five  centuries  in  England  and  America.  The  gov 
ernments  of  the  thirteen  states  were  all  similar,  and  the  polit 
ical  ideas  of  one  were  perfectly  intelligible  to  all  the  others. 
It  was  essentially  fallacious,  therefore,  to  liken  the  case  of 
the  United  States  to  that  of  ancient  Rome. 

But  there  was  another  feature  of  the  case  which  was  quite 
hidden  from  the  men  of  1783.  Just  before  the  assembling  of 
the  first  Continental  Congress  James  Watt  had  completed 
his  steam-engine  ;  in  the  summer  of  1787,  while  the  Federal 
Convention  was  sitting  at  Philadelphia,  John  Fitch  launched 
his  first  steamboat  on  the  Delaware  River ;  and  Stephenson's 
invention  of  the  locomotive  was  to  follow  in  less  than  half 
a  century.  Even  with  all  other  conditions  favourable,  it  is 


62  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

doubtful  if  the  American  Union  could  have  been  preserved 
to  the  present  time  without  the  railroad.  But  for  the  mili 
tary  aid  of  railroads  our  government  would  hardly  have  suc 
ceeded  in  putting  down  the  rebellion  of  the  southern  states. 
In  the  debates  on  the  Oregon  Bill  in  the  United 
of  railroad  States  Senate  in  1843,  the  idea  that  we  could  ever 
on  have  an  interest  in  so  remote  a  country  as  Oregon 
y  was  loudly  ridiculed  by  some  of  the  members.  It 
American  would  take  ten  months  —  said  George  McDuffie, 
the  very  able  senator  from  South  Carolina  —  for 
representatives  to  get  from  that  territory  to  the  District 
of  Columbia  and  back  again.  Yet  since  the  building  of 
railroads  to  the  Pacific  coast,  we  can  go  from  Boston  to 
the  capital  of  Oregon  in  much  less  time  than  it  took  John 
Hancock  to  make  the  journey  from  Boston  to  Philadelphia. 
Railroads  and  telegraphs  have  made  our  vast  country,  both 
for  political  and  for  social  purposes,  more  snug  and  compact 
than  little  Switzerland  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  or  New 
England  a  century  ago. 

At  the  time  of  our  Revolution  the  difficulties  of  travelling 
formed  an  important  social  obstacle  to  the  union  of  the  states. 
Irr  our  time  the  persons  who  pass  in  a  single  day  between 
New  York  and  Boston  by  six  or  seven  distinct  lines  of  rail 
road  and  steamboat  are  numbered  by  thousands.  In  1783 
two  stage-coaches  were  enough  for  all  the  travellers,  and 
nearly  all  the  freight  besides,  that  went  between  these  two 
cities,  except  such  large  freight  as  went  by  sea  around  Cape 
Cod.  The  journey  began  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Horses  were  changed  every  twenty  miles,  and  if  the  roads 
were  in  good  condition  some  forty  miles  would  be  made  by 
Difficulty  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening.  In  bad  weather,  when 
f hundred*8  tne  passengers  had  to  get  down  and  lift  the  clumsy 
years  ago  wheels  out  of  deep  ruts,  the  progress  was  much 
slower.  The  loss  of  life  from  accidents,  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  travellers,  was  much  greater  than  it  has  ever 
been  on  the  railway.  Broad  rivers  like  the  Connecticut  and 
Housatonic  had  no  bridges.  To  drive  across  them  in  winter, 


1783  THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  63 

when  they  were  solidly  frozen  over,  was  easy  ;  and  in  pleasant 
summer  weather  to  cross  in  a  row-boat  was  not  a  dangerous 
undertaking.  But  squalls  at  some  seasons  and  floating  ice  at 
others  were  things  to  be  feared.  More  than  one  instance  is 
recorded  where  boats  were  crushed  and  passengers  drowned, 
or  saved  only  by  scrambling  upon  ice-floes.  After  a  week 
or  ten  days  of  discomfort  and  danger  the  jolted  and  jaded 
traveller  reached  New  York.  Such  was  a  journey  in  the 
most  highly  civilized  part  of  the  United  States.  The  case 
was  still  worse  in  the  South,  and  it  was  not  so  very  much 
better  in  England  and  France.  In  one  respect  the  traveller 
in  the  United  States  fared  better  than  the  traveller  in 
Europe  :  there  was  less  danger  from  highwaymen. 


OLD    STAGE-COACH 


Such  being  the  difficulty  of  travelling,  people  never  made 
long  journeys  save  for  very  important  reasons.  Except  in 
the  case  of  the  soldiers,  most  people  lived  and  died  without 
ever  having  seen  any  state  but  their  own.  And  as  the  mails 
were  irregular  and  uncertain,  and  the  rates  of  postage  very 
high,  people  heard  from  one  another  but  seldom.  Commer 
cial  dealings  between  the  different  states  were  inconsider- 


64  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

able.  The  occupation  of  the  people  was  chiefly  agriculture. 
Cities  were  few  and  small,  and  each  little  district  for  the 
most  part  supported  itself.  Under  such  circumstances  the 
different  parts  of  the  country  knew  little  about  each  other, 
and  local  prejudices  were  intense.  It  was  not  simply  free 
Local  jeai-  Massachusetts  and  slave-holding  South  Carolina, 
ousies  and  or  English  Connecticut  and  Dutch  New  York,  that 

antipathies, 

an  inherit-  misunderstood  and  ridiculed  each  the  other  ;  but 
primeval  even  between  such  neighbouring  states  as  Con- 
savagery  necticut  and  Massachusetts,  both  of  them  thor 
oughly  English  and  Puritan,  and  in  all  their  social  conditions 
almost  exactly  alike,  it  used  often  to  be  said  that  there  was 
no  love  lost.  These  unspeakably  stupid  and  contemptible 
local  antipathies  are  inherited  by  civilized  men  from  that 
far-off  time  when  the  clan  system  prevailed  over  the  face  of 
the  earth,  and  the  hand  of  every  clan  was  raised  against  its 
neighbours.  They  are  pale  and  evanescent  survivals  from 
the  universal  primitive  warfare,  and  the  sooner  they  die  out 
from  human  society  the  better  for  every  one.  They  should 
be  stigmatized  and  frowned  down  upon  every  fit  occasion, 
just  as  we  frown  upon  swearing  as  a  symbol  of  anger  and 
contention.  But  the  only  thing  which  can  finally  destroy 
them  is  the  widespread  and  unrestrained  intercourse  of 
different  groups  of  people  in  peaceful  social  and  commercial 
relations.  The  rapidity  with  which  this  process  is  now  going 
on  is  the  most  encouraging  of  all  the  symptoms  of  our 
modern  civilization.  But  a  century  ago  the  progress  made 
in  this  direction  had  been  relatively  small,  and  it  was  a  very 
critical  moment  for  the  American  people. 

The  thirteen  states,  as  already  observed,  had  worked  in 
concert  for  only  nine  years,  during  which  their  cooperation 
had  been  feeble  and  halting.  But  the  several  state  govern 
ments  had  been  in  operation  since  the  first  settlement  of 
the  country,  and  were  regarded  with  intense  loyalty  by  the 
people  of  the  states.  Under  the  royal  governors  the  local 
political  life  of  each  state  had  been  vigorous  and  often 
stormy,  as  befitted  communities  of  the  sturdy  descendants  of 


66  THE   CRITICAL  PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

English  freemen.  The  legislative  assembly  of  each  state 
had  stoutly  defended  its  liberties  against  the  encroachments 
of  the  governor.  In  the  eyes  of  the  people  it  was  the  only 
power  on  earth  competent  to  lay  taxes  upon  them,  it  was  as 
supreme  in  its  own  sphere  as  the  British  Parliament  itself, 
and  in  behalf  of  this  rooted  conviction  the  people  had  gone 
to  war  and  won  their  independence  from  England.  During 
the  war  the  people  of  all  the  states,  except  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island,  had  carefully  remodelled  their  governments, 
and  in  the  performance  of  this  work  had  withdrawn  many 
Conserva-  of  their  ablest  statesmen  from  the  Continental 
tereofhtheac"  Congress  ;  but  except  for  the  expulsion  of  the  royal 
Revolution  anj  proprietary  governors,  the  work  had  in  no 
instance  been  revolutionary  in  its  character.  It  was  not  so 
much  that  the  American  people  gained  an  increase  of  free 
dom  by  their  separation  from  England,  as  that  they  kept 
the  freedom  they  had  always  enjoyed,  that  freedom  which 
was  the  inalienable  birthright  of  Englishmen,  but  which 
George  III.  had  foolishly  sought  to  impair.  The  American 
Revolution  was  therefore  in  no  respect  destructive.  It  was 
the  most  conservative  revolution  known  to  history,  thor 
oughly  English  in  conception  from  beginning  to  end.  It 
had  no  likeness  whatever  to  the  terrible  popular  convulsion 
which  soon  after  took  place  in  France.  The  mischievous 
doctrines  of  Rousseau  had  found  few  readers  and  fewer 
admirers  among  the  Americans.  The  principles  upon  which 
their  revolution  was  conducted  were  those  of  Sidney  and 
Locke.  In  remodelling  the  state  governments,  as  in  plan 
ning  the  union  of  the  states,  the  precedents  followed  and  the 
principles  applied  were  almost  purely  English.  We  must 
now  pass  in  review  the  principal  changes  wrought  in  the 
several  states,  and  we  shall  then  be  ready  to  consider  the 
general  structure  of  the  Confederation,  and  to  describe 
the  remarkable  series  of  events  which  led  to  the  adoption  of 
our  Federal  Constitution. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  there  were  three  kinds  of  government  in 


THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  67 

the  colonies.  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  had  always 
been  true  republics,  with  governors  and  legislative  assemblies 
elected  by  the  people.  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  Mary 
land  presented  the  appearance  of  limited  hereditary  mon 
archies.  Their  assemblies  were  chosen  by  the  people,  but 
the  lords  proprietary  appointed  their  governors,  or  in  some 
instances  acted  as  governors  themselves.  In  Maryland  the 
office  of  lord  proprietary  was  hereditary  in  the  State 
Calvert  family ;  in  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania,  emments 

,.,,,,..  remodelled: 

which,  though  distinct  commonwealths  with  sepa-  assemblies 
rate  legislatures,  had  the  same  executive  head,  it  from^kl 
was  hereditary  in  the  Penn  family.  The  other  nialtimes 
eight  colonies  were  viceroyalties,  with  governors  appointed 
by  the  king,  while  in  all  alike  the  people  elected  the  legisla 
tures.  Accordingly,  in  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  no 


FITCH'S   STEAMBOAT    OF    1790 

change  was  made  necessary  by  the  Revolution,  beyond  the 
mere  omission  of  the  king's  name  from  legal  documents  ; 
and  their  charters,  which  dated  from  the  middle  of  the  seven 
teenth  century,  continued  to  do  duty  as  state  constitutions 
till  far  into  the  nineteenth.  During  the  Revolutionary 
War  all  the  other  states  framed  new  constitutions,  but  in 
most  essential  respects  they  took  the  old  colonial  charters 
for  their  model.  The  popular  legislative  body  remained 
unchanged  even  in  its  name.  In  North  Carolina  its  supreme 
dignity  was  vindicated  in  its  title  of  the  House  of  Commons  ; 


68  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

in  Virginia  it  was  called  the  House  of  Burgesses ;  in  most 
of  the  states  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  members 
were  chosen  each  year,  except  in  South  Carolina,  where 
they  served  for  two  years.  In  the  New  England  states  they 
represented  the  townships,  in  other  states  the  counties.  In 
all  the  states  except  Pennsylvania  a  property  qualification 
was  required  of  them. 

In  addition  to  this  House  of  Representatives  all  the  legis 
latures  except  those  of  Pennsylvania  and  Georgia  contained 
Origin  of  a  second  or  upper  house  known  as  the  Senate, 
the  senates  j>^Q  origin  of  the  senate  is  to  be  found  in  the 
governor's  council  of  colonial  times,  just  as  the  House  of 
Lords  is  descended  from  the  Witenagemot  or  council  of 
great  barons  summoned  by  the  Old-English*  kings.  The 
Americans  had  been  used  to  having  the  acts  of  their  pop 
ular  assemblies  reviewed  by  a  council,  and  so  they  retained 
this  revisory  body  as  an  upper  house.  A  higher  property 
qualification  was  required  than  for  membership  of  the  lower 
house,  and,  except  in  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  and 
South  Carolina,  the  term  of  service  was  longer.  In  Mary 
land  senators  sat  for  five  years,  in  Virginia  and  New  York 
for  four  years,  elsewhere  for  two  years.  In  some  states  they 
were  chosen  by  the  people,  in  others  by  the  lower  house. 
In  Maryland  they  were  chosen  by  a  college  of  electors,  thus 
affording  a  precedent  for  the  method  of  electing  the  chief 
magistrate  of  the  Union  under  the  Federal  Constitution. 

Governors  were  unpopular  in  those  days.  There  was  too 
much  flavour  of  royalty  and  high  prerogative  about  them. 
Except  in  the  two  republics  of  Rhode  Island  and  Connecti 
cut,  American  political  history  during  the  eighteenth  century- 
was  chiefly  the  record  of  interminable  squabbles  between 
governors  and  legislatures,  down  to  the  moment  when  the 
detested  agents  of  royalty  were  clapped  into  jail,  or  took 
Governors  refuge  behind  the  bulwarks  of  a  British  seventy- 
f°ur-  Accordingly,  the  new  constitutions  were 
verv  chaj-y  of  the  powers  to  be  exercised  by  the 
governor.  In  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware,  in  New  Hamp- 


1783 


THE   THIRTEEN   COMMONWEALTHS 


69 


VIEW   OF    NORTH    SIDE    OF   WALL    STREET,    NEW   YORK,    1785 

shire  and  Massachusetts,  the  governor  was  at  first  replaced 
by  an  executive  council,  and  the  president  of  this  council  was 
first  magistrate  and  titular  ruler  of  the  state.  His  dignity 
was  imposing  enough,  but  his  authority  was  merely  that 
of  a  chairman.  The  other  states  had  governors  chosen  by 
the  legislatures,  except  in  New  York,  where  the  governor 
was  elected  by  the  people.  No  one  was  eligible  to  the  office 
of  governor  who  did  not  possess  a  specified  amount  of  pro 
perty.  In  most  of  the  states  the  governor  could  not  be  re- 
elected,  he  had  no  veto  upon  the  acts  of  the  legislature,  nor 
any  power  of  appointing  officers.  In  1780,  in  a  new  consti 
tution  drawn  up  by  James  Bowdoin  and  the  two  Adamses, 
Massachusetts  led  the  way  in  the  construction  of  a  more 
efficient  executive  department.  The  president  was  replaced 
by  a  governor  elected  annually  by  the  people,  and  endowed 
with  the  power  of  appointment  and  a  suspensory  veto.  The 
first  governor  elected  under  this  constitution  was  John  Han 
cock.  In  1783  New  Hampshire  adopted  a  similar  constitu 
tion.  In  1790  Pennsylvania  added  an  upper  house  to  its 
legislature,  and  vested  the  executive  power  in  a  governor 
elected  by  the  people  for  a  term  of  three  years,  and  twice 


70  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

reeligible.  He  was  intrusted  with  the  power  of  appointment 
to  offices,  with  a  suspensory  veto,  and  with  the  royal  pre 
rogative  of  reprieving  or  pardoning  criminals.  In  1 792  simi 
lar  changes  were  made  in  Delaware.  In  1789  Georgia  added 
the  upper  house  to  its  legislature,  and  about  the  same  time 
in  several  states  the  governor's  powers  were  enlarged. 

Thus  the  various  state  governments  were  repetitions  on 
a  small  scale  of  what  was  then  supposed  to  be  the  triplex 
government  of  England,  with  its  King,  Lords,  and  Com 
mons.  The  governor  answered  to  the  king  with  his  dignity 
curtailed  by  election  for  a  short  period,  and  by  narrowly 
limited  prerogatives.  The  senate  answered  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  except  in  being  a  representative  and  not  a  hereditary 
body.  It  was  supposed  to  represent  more  especially  that 
part  of  the  community  which  was  possessed  of  most  wealth 
and  consideration ;  and  in  several  states  the  senators  were 
apportioned  with  some  reference  to  the  amount  of  taxes 
paid  by  different  parts  of  the  state.  The  senate  of  New 
York,  in  direct  imitation  of  the  House  of  Lords,  was  made 
a  supreme  court  of  errors.  On  the  other  hand,  the  assembly 
answered  to  the  House  of  Commons,  save  that  its  power 
was  limited  by  the  senate  to  a  much  greater  degree  than  the 
power  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  limited  by  the  House  of 
Lords.  But  this  peculiarity  of  the  British  Constitution  was 
not  well  understood  a  century  ago ;  and  the  misunderstand 
ing,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  exerted  a  serious  influence 
upon  the  form  of  our  federal  government,  as  well  as  upon 
the  constitutions  of  the  several  states. 

In  all  the  thirteen  states  the  common  law  of  England 
remained  in  force,  as  it  does  to  this  day  save  where  modified 
by  statute.  British  and  colonial  statutes  made  prior  to  the 
Revolution  continued  also  in  force  unless  expressly  repealed. 
The  system  of  civil  and  criminal  courts,  the  remedies  in 
common  law  and  equity,  the  forms  of  writs,  the  functions  of 
justices  of  the  peace,  the  courts  of  probate,  all  remained 
substantially  unchanged.  In  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and 
New  Jersey,  the  judges  held  office  for  a  term  of  seven  years  ; 


1783 


THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


in  all  the  other  states  they  held  office  for  life  or  during  good 
behaviour.      In  all  the  states  save  Georgia  they   The 
were  appointed  either  by  the  governor  or  by  the   Judlciary 
legislature.     It  was  Georgia  that  in  1812  first  set  the  per 
nicious  example  of  electing  judges  for  short  terms  by  the 
people,1  —  a  practice  which  is  responsible  for  much  of  the 
degradation  that  the  courts  have  suffered  in  many  of  our 
states,  and  which  will  have  to  be  abandoned  before  a  proper 
administration  of  justice  can  ever  be  secured. 


MERCHANTS'  EXCHANGE,  NEW  YORK,  1752-99 

In  bestowing  the  suffrage,  the  new  constitutions  were  as 
conservative  as  in  all  other  respects.  The  general  state  of 
opinion  in  America  at  that  time,  with  regard  to  universal 
suffrage,  was  far  more  advanced  than  the  general  state  of 
opinion  in  England,  but  it  was  less  advanced  than  the  opin- 

1  In  recent  years  Georgia  has  been  one  of  the  first  states  to  abandon 
this  bad  practice. 


72  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

ions  of  such  statesmen  as  Pitt  and  Shelburne  and  the  Duke 
of  Richmond.  There  was  a  truly  English  irregularity  in  the 
provisions  which  were  made  on  this  subject.  In  New  Hamp 
shire,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  South  Carolina,  all  resi 
dent  freemen  who  paid  taxes  could  vote.  In  North 
limited  Carolina  all  such  persons  could  vote  for  members 
of  the  lower  house,  but  in  order  to  vote  for  sena 
tors  a  freehold  of  fifty  acres  was  required.  In  Virginia  none 
could  vote  save  those  who  possessed  such  a  freehold  of  fifty 
acres.  To  vote  for  governor  or  for  senators  in  New  York, 
one  must  possess  a  freehold  of  $250,  clear  of  mortgage,  and 
to  vote  for  assemblymen  one  must  either  have  a  freehold  of 
$50,  or  pay  a  yearly  rent  of  $10.  The  pettiness  of  these 
sums  was  in  keeping  with  the  time  when  two  daily  coaches 
sufficed  for  the  traffic  between  our  two  greatest  commercial 
cities.  In  Rhode  Island  an  unincumbered  freehold  worth 
$134  was  required  ;  but  in  Rhode  Island  and  Pennsylvania 
the  eldest  sons  of  qualified  freemen  could  vote  without  pay 
ment  of  taxes.  In  all  the  other  states  the  possession  of  a 
small  amount  of  property,  either  real  or  personal,  varying 
from  $33  to  $200,  was  the  necessary  qualification  for  voting. 
Thus  slowly  and  irregularly  did  the  states  drift  toward  uni 
versal  suffrage ;  but  although  the  impediments  in  the  way 
of  voting  were  more  serious  than  they  seem  to  us  in  these 
days  when  the  community  is  more  prosperous  and  money 
less  scarce,  they  were  still  not  very  great,  and  in  the  opinion 
of  conservative  people  they  barely  sufficed  to  exclude  from 
the  suffrage  such  shiftless  persons  as  had  no  visible  interest 
in  keeping  down  the  taxes. 

At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  the  succession  to  property 
was  regulated  in  New  York  and  the  southern  states  by  the 
English  rule  of  primogeniture.  The  eldest  son  took  all.  In 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  the  four  New  Eng 
land  states,  the  eldest  son  took  a  double  share.  It  was 
Georgia  that  led  the  way  in  decreeing  the  equal  distribution 
of  intestate  property,  both  real  and  personal ;  and  between 
1784  and  1796  the  example  was  followed  by  all  the  other 


1783  THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  73 

states.  At  the  same  time  entails  were  either  definitely  abol 
ished,  or  the  obstacles  to  cutting  them  off  were 
removed.  In  New  York  the  manorial  privileges 
of  the  great  patroons  were  swept  away.  In  Ma- 
ryland  the  old  manorial  system  had  long  been 
dying  a  natural  death  through  the  encroachments 
of  the  patriarchal  system  of  slavery.  The  ownership  of  all 


ungranted  lands  within  the  limits  of  the  thirteen  states 
passed  from  the  crown  not  to  the  Confederacy,  but  to  the 
several  state  governments.  In  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland 
such  ungranted  lands  had  belonged  to  the  lords  proprietary. 
They  were  now  forfeited  to  the  state.  The  Penn  family 
was  indemnified  by  Pennsylvania  to  the  amount  of  half  a 
million  dollars ;  but  Maryland  made  no  compensation  to  the 
Calverts,  inasmuch  as  their  claim  was  presented  by  an  ille 
gitimate  descendant  of  the  last  Lord  Baltimore. 


74  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

The  success  of  the  American  Revolution  made  it  possible 
for  the  different  states  to  take  measures  for  the  gradual 
abolition  of  slavery  and  the  immediate  abolition  of  the  for 
eign  slave-trade.  On  this  great  question  the  state  of  public 
opinion  in  America  was  more  advanced  than  in  England. 
So  great  a  thinker  as  Edmund  Burke,  who  devoted  much 
thought  to  the  subject,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  slavery 

was  an  incurable  evil,  and  that  there  was  not  the 
SSfthe  slightest  hope  that  the  trade  in  slaves  could  be 
slavery  and  stopped.  The  most  that  he  thought  could  be  done 
the  slave-  by  judicious  legislation  was  to  mitigate  the  horrors 

which  the  poor  negroes  endured  on  board  ship,  or 
to  prevent  wives  from  being  sold  away  from  their  husbands 
or  children  from  their  parents.  Such  was  the  outlook  to 
one  of  the  greatest  political  philosophers  of  modern  times 
just  eighty-two  years  before  the  immortal  proclamation  of 
President  Lincoln !  But  how  vast  was  the  distance  between 
Burke  and  his  contemporary  Thurlow,  who  in  1799  poured 
out  the  vials  of  his  wrath  upon  "the  altogether  misera 
ble  and  contemptible"  proposal  to  abolish  the  slave-trade. 
George  III.  agreed  with  his  chancellor,  and  resisted  the 
movement  for  abolition  with  all  the  obstinacy  of  which  his 
hard  and  narrow  nature  was  capable.  In  1 769  the  Virginia 
legislature  had  enacted  that  the  further  importation  of 
negroes,  to  be  sold  into  slavery,  should  be  prohibited.  But 
George  III.  instructed  the  governor  to  veto  this  act,  and  it 
was  vetoed.  In  Jefferson's  first  draft  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  this  action  of  the  king  was  made  the  occasion 
of  a  fierce  denunciation  of.  slavery,  but  in  deference  to  the 
prejudices  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  the  clause  was 
struck  out  by  Congress.  When  George  III.  and  his  vetoes 
had  been  eliminated  from  the  case,  it  became  possible  for 
the  states  to  legislate  freely  on  the  subject.  In  1776  negro 
slaves  were  held  in  all  the  thirteen  states,  but  in  all  except 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  there  was  a  strong  sentiment  in 
favour  of  emancipation.  In  North  Carolina,  which  contained 
a  large  Quaker  population,  and  in  which  estates  were  small 


1783 


THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


75 


and  were  often  cultivated  by  free  labour,  the  pro-slavery 
feeling  was  never  so  strong  as  in  the  southernmost  states. 
In  Virginia  all  the  foremost  statesmen  —  Washington,  Jef 
ferson,  Lee,  Randolph,  Henry,  Madison,  and  Mason  —  were 


opposed  to  the  continuance  of  slavery  ;  and  their  opinions 
were  shared  by  many  of  the  largest  planters.  For  tobacco 
culture  slavery  did  not  seem  so  indispensable  as  for  the 
raising  of  rice  and  indigo  ;  and  in  Virginia  the  negroes,  half- 


76  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

civilized  by  kindly  treatment,  were  not  regarded  with  dread 
by  their  masters,  like  the  ill-treated  and  ferocious  blacks  of 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia.  After  1808  the  policy  and  the 
sentiments  of  Virginia  underwent  a  marked  change.  The 
invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
sudden  and  prodigious  development  of  manufactures  in  Eng 
land,  greatly  stimulated  the  growth  of  cotton  in  the  ever- 
enlarging  area  of  the  Gulf  states,  and  created  an  immense 
demand  for  slave-labour,  just  at  the  time  when  the  importa 
tion  of  negroes  from  Africa  came  to  an  end.  The  breeding 
of  slaves,  to  be  sold  to  the  planters  of  the  Gulf  states,  then 
became  such  a  profitable  occupation  in  Virginia  as  entirely 
to  change  the  popular  feeling  about  slavery.  But  until  1 808 
Virginia  sympathized  with  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  which 
was  growing  up  in  the  northern  states  ;  and  the  same  was 
true  of  Maryland.  Emancipation  was,  however,  much  more 
easy  to  accomplish  in  the  north,  because  the  number  of 
slaves  was  small,  and  economic  circumstances  distinctly 
favoured  free  labour.  In  the  work  of  gradual  emancipation 
the  little  state  of  Delaware  led  the  way.  In  its  new  consti 
tution  of  1776  the  further  introduction  of  slaves  was  pro 
hibited,  all  restraints  upon  emancipation  having  already  been 
removed.  In  the  assembly  of  Virginia  in  1 778  a  bill  pro 
hibiting  the  further  introduction  of  slaves  was  moved  and 
carried  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  the  same  measure  was 
passed  in  Maryland  in  1783,  while  both  these  states  removed 
all  restraints  upon  emancipation.  North  Carolina  was  not 
ready  to  go  quite  so  far,  but  in  1 786  she  sought  to  discour 
age  the  slave-trade  by  putting  a  duty  of  £$  per  head  on  all 
negroes  thereafter  imported.  New  Jersey  followed  the  ex 
ample  of  Maryland  and  Virginia.  Pennsylvania  went  farther. 
In  1780  its  assembly  enacted  that  no  more  slaves  should  be 
brought  in,  and  that  all  children  of  slaves  born  after  that 
date  should  be  free.  The  same  provisions  were  made  by 
New  Hampshire  in  its  new  constitution  of  1783,  and  by  the 
assemblies  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  in  1784.  New 
York  went  farther  still,  and  in  1785  enacted  that  all  children 


1783  THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  77 

of  slaves  thereafter  born  should  not  only  be  free,  but  should 
be  admitted  to  vote  on  the  same  conditions  as  other  free 
men.  In  1788  Virginia,  which  contained  many  free  negroes, 
enacted  that  any  person  convicted  of  kidnapping  or  selling 
into  slavery  any  free  person  should  suffer  death  on  the  gal 
lows.  Summing  up  all  these  facts,  we  see  that  within  two 
years  after  the  independence  of  the  United  States  had  been 
acknowledged  by  England,  while  the  two  southernmost 
states  had  done  nothing  to  check  the  growth  of  slavery, 
North  Carolina  had  discouraged  the  importation  of  slaves ; 
Virginia,  Maryland,  Delaware,  and  New  Jersey  had  stopped 
such  importation  and  removed  all  restraint  upon  emancipa 
tion  ;  and  all  the  remaining  states,  except  Massachusetts, 
had  made  gradual  emancipation  compulsory.  Massachusetts 
had  gone  still  farther.  Before  the  Revolution  the  anti-sla 
very  feeling  had  been  very  strong  there,  and  cases  brought 
into  court  for  the  purpose  of  testing  the  legality  of  slavery 
had  been  decided  in  favour  of  those  who  were  opposed  to 
the  continuance  of  that  barbarous  institution.  In  1777  an 
American  cruiser  brought  into  the  port  of  Salem  a  captured 
British  ship  with  slaves  on  board,  and  these  slaves  were 
advertised  for  sale,  but  on  complaint  being  made  before  the 
legislature  they  were  set  free.  The  new  constitution  of  1780 
contained  a  declaration  of  rights  which  asserted  that  all  men 
are  born  free  and  have  an  equal  and  inalienable  right  to 
defend  their  lives  and  liberties,  to  acquire  property,  and  to 
seek  and  obtain  safety  and  happiness.  The  supreme  court 
presently  decided  that  this  clause  worked  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  and  accordingly  Massachusetts  was  the  first  of 
American  states,  within  the  limits  of  the  Union,  to  become 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  words  a  free  commonwealth.  Of 
the  negro  inhabitants,  not  more  than  six  thousand  in  num 
ber,  a  large  proportion  had  already  for  a  long  time  enjoyed 
freedom  ;  and  all  were  now  admitted  to  the  suffrage  on  the 
same  terms  as  other  citizens. 

By  the  revolutionary  legislation  of  the  states  some  pro 
gress  was  also  effected  in  the  direction  of  a  more  complete 


78  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

religious  freedom.  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  were  the 
Progress  only  states  in  which  all  Christian  sects  stood  so- 
freedoLin  cially  and  politically  on  an  equal  footing.  In 
religion  Rhode  Island  all  Protestants  enjoyed  equal  privi 
leges,  but  Catholics  were  debarred  from  voting.1  In  Massa 
chusetts,  New  Hampshire,  and  Connecticut,  the  old  Puritan 
Congregationalism  was  the  established  religion.  The  Con 
gregational  church  was  supported  by  taxes,  and  the  minister, 
once  chosen,  kept  his  place  for  life  or  during  good  behaviour. 
He  could  not  be  got  rid  of  unless  formally  investigated 
and  dismissed  by  an  ecclesiastical  council.  Laws  against 
blasphemy,  which  were  virtually  laws  against  heresy,  were 
in  force  in  these  three  states.  In  Massachusetts,  Catholic 
priests  were  liable  to  imprisonment  for  life.  Any  one  who 
should  dare  to  speculate  too  freely  about  the  nature  of 
Christ,  or  the  philosophy  of  the  plan  of  salvation,  or  to  ex 
press  a  doubt  as  to  the  plenary  inspiration  of  every  word 
between  the  two  covers  of  the  Bible,  was  subject  to  fine 
and  imprisonment.  The  tithing-man  still  arrested  Sabbath- 
breakers  and  shut  them  up  in  the  town-cage  in  the  market 
place  ;  he  stopped  all  unnecessary  riding  or  driving  on 

1  This  exclusion  of  Catholics  was  contrary  to  the  views  of  Roger 
Williams  and  to  the  spirit  of  the  Rhode  Island  charter,  if  not  to  its 
letter  also.  It  was  effected,  nobody  knows  just  how,  by  the  interpola 
tion  of  a  disabling  clause  in  the  "  Act  declaring  the  rights  and  privi 
leges  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  within  this  colony,"  which  ends  with  the 
words,  "  and  that  all  men  [professing  Christianity  and]  of  competent 
estates,  and  of  civil  conversation,  who  acknowledge  and  are  obedient 
to  the  civil  magistrate,  though  of  different  judgment  in  religious  affairs 
[Roman  Catholics  excepted],  shall  be  admitted  freemen,  and  shall  have 
liberty  to  choose  and  be  chosen  officers  in  the  colony,  both  military  and 
civil."  The  first  interpolation  excludes  Jews,  as  the  second  excludes 
Catholics,  whereas  Williams  in  his  noble  scheme  of  Christian  fellow 
ship  included  both  Jews  and  Catholics.  These  interpolations  were 
certainly  made  at  some  time  between  1684  and  1705;  probably  about 
1699.  They  are  undoubtedly  a  symptom  of  the  anti-Catholic  wave  of 
feeling  which  followed  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  when  Cath 
olic  Jacobites  were  likely  to  be  disloyal.  They  were  repealed  in  1783. 
See  Greene's  History  of  Rhode  Island,  ii.  490-494. 


1783  THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  81 

The  Revolution  achieved  the  discomfiture  of  a  clergy  already 
thus  deservedly  discredited.  The  parsons  mostly  embraced 
the  cause  of  the  crown,  but  failed  to  carry  their  congrega 
tions  with  them,  and  thus  they  found  themselves  arrayed  in 
hopeless  antagonism  to  popular  sentiment  in  a  state  which 
contained  perhaps  fewer  Tories  in  proportion  to  its  popula 
tion  than  any  other  of  the  thirteen. 

At  the  same  time  the  Episcopal  church  itself  had  gradu 
ally  come  to  be  a  minority  in  the  commonwealth.  For  more 
than  half  a  century  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians,  German 
Lutherans,  English  Quakers,  and  Baptists,  had  been  work 
ing  their  way  southward  from  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey, 
and  had  settled  in  the  fertile  country  west  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 
Daniel  Morgan,  who  had  won  the  most  brilliant  battle  of 
the  Revolution,  was  one  of  these  men,  and  sturdiness  was 
a  chief  characteristic  of  most  of  them.  So  long  as  these 
frontier  settlers  served  as  a  much-needed  bulwark  against 
the  Indians,  the  church  saw  fit  to  ignore  them  and  let  them 
build  meeting-houses  and  carry  on  religious  services  as  they 
pleased.  But  when  the  peril  of  Indian  attack  had  been 
thrust  westward  into  the  Ohio  valley,  and  these  dissenting 
communities  had  waxed  strong  and  prosperous,  the  ecclesi 
astical  party  in  the  state  undertook  to  lay  taxes  on  them  for 
the  support  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  to  compel  them 
to  receive  Episcopal  clergymen  to  preach  for  them,  to  bless 
them  in  marriage,  and  to  bury  their  dead.  The  immediate 
consequence  was  a  revolt  which  not  only  overthrew  the 
established  church  in  Virginia,  but  nearly  effected  its  ruin. 
The  troubles  began  in  1768,  when  the  Baptists  had  made 
their  way  into  the  centre  of  the  state,  and  three  of  their 
preachers  were  arrested  by  the  sheriff  of  Spottsylvania.  As 
the  indictment  was  read  against  these  men  for  "preaching 
the  gospel  contrary  to  law,"  a  deep  and  solemn  voice  inter 
rupted  the  proceedings.  Patrick  Henry  had  come  on  horse 
back  many  a  mile  over  roughest  roads  to  listen  to  the  trial, 
and  this  phrase,  which  savoured  of  the  religious  despotisms 
of  old,  was  quite  too  much  for  him.  "  May  it  please  your 


82  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

worships,"  he  exclaimed,  "  what  did  I  hear  read?  Did  I 
hear  an  expression  that  these  men,  whom  your  worships  are 
about  to  try  for  misdemeanour,  are  charged  with  preaching 
the  gospel  of  the  Son  of  God  !  "  The  shamefast  silence 
which  ensued  was  of  ill  omen  for  the  success  of  an  under 
taking  so  unwelcome  to  the  growing  liberalism  of  the  time. 
The  zeal  of  the  persecuted  Baptists  was  presently  reinforced 
by  the  learning  and  the  dialectic  skill  of  the  Presbyterian 
ministers.  Unlike  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  these 
Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  were  in  favour  of  the  total  sepa 
ration  of  church  from  state.  It  was  one  of  their  cardinal 
principles  that  the  civil  magistrate  had  no  right  to  interfere 
in  any  way  with  matters  of  religion.  By  taking  this  broad 
ground  they  secured  the  powerful  aid  of  Thomas  Jefferson, 
and  afterwards  of  Madison  and  Mason.  The  controversy 
went  on  through  all  the  years  of  the  Revolutionary  War, 
while  all  Virginia,  from  the  sea  to  the  mountains,  rang  with 
fulminations  and  arguments.  In  1776  Jefferson  and  Mason 
succeeded  in  carrying  a  bill  which  released  all  dissenters 
from  parish  rates  and  legalized  all  forms  of  worship.  At 
last  in  1785,  while  Jefferson  was  in  France,  Madison  won 
for  him  the  crowning  victory  in  the  passage  of  his  Religious 
Jefferson's  Freedom  Act,  by  which  the  Church  of  England 
Freed'om  was  disestablished  and  all  parish  rates  abolished, 
Act,  1785  ancj  stin  more,  all  religious  tests  were  done  away 
with.  In  this  last  respect  Virginia  came  to  the  front  among 
all  the  American  states,  as  Massachusetts  had  come  to  the 
front  in  the  abolition  of  negro  slavery.  Nearly  all  the  states 
still  imposed  religious  tests  upon  civil  office-holders,  from 
simply  declaring  a  general  belief  in  the  infallibleness  of  the 
Bible  to  accepting  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  The  Virginia 
statute,  which  declared  that  "  opinion  in  matters  of  religion 
shall  in  nowise  diminish,  enlarge,  or  affect  civil  capacities," 
was  translated  into  French  and  Italian,  and  was  widely  read 
and  commented  on  in  Europe. 

It  is  the  historian's  unpleasant  duty  to  add  that  the  vic 
tory  thus  happily  won  was  ungenerously  followed  up.     The- 


1785 


THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


ological  and  political  odium  combined  to  overwhelm  the 
Episcopal  church  in  Virginia.  The  persecuted  became  per 
secutors.  It  was  contended  that  the  property  of  the  church, 
having  been  largely  created  by  unjustifiable  taxation,  ought 
to  be  forfeited.  In  1802  its  parsonages  and  glebe  lands 


POHICK    PARISH    CHURCH 


were  sold,  its  parishes  wiped  out,  and  its  clergy  left  without 
a  calling.  "A  reckless  sensualist,"  said  Dr.  Hawks,  " ad 
ministered  the  morning  dram  to  his  guests  from  the  silver 
cup"  used  in  the  communion  service.  But  in  all  this  there 
is  a  manifest  historic  lesson.  That  it  should  have  been  pos 
sible  thus  to  deal  with  the  Episcopal  church  in  Virginia 
shows  forcibly  the  moribund  condition  into  which  it  had5 
been  brought  through  dependence  upon  the  extraneous  aid 
of  a  political  sovereignty  from  which  the  people  of  Virginia 
were  severing  their  allegiance.  The  lesson  is  most  vividly 


84  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

enhanced  by  the  contrast  with  the  church  of  South  Carolina 
which,  rooted  in  its  own  soil,  was  quite  able  to  stand  alone 
when  government  aid  was  withdrawn.  In  Virginia  the 
church  in  which  George  Washington  was  reared  had  so 
nearly  vanished  by  the  year  1830  that  Chief  Justice  Mar 
shall  said  it  was  folly  to  dream  of  reviving  so  dead  a  thing. 
Nevertheless,  under  the  noble  ministration  of  its  great 
bishop,  William  Meade,  the  Episcopal  church  in  Virginia, 
no  longer  relying  upon  state  aid,  but  trusting  in  the  divine 
persuasive  power  of  spiritual  truth,  was  even  then  entering 
upon  a  new  life  and  beginning  to  exercise  a  most  wholesome 
influence. 

The  separation  of  the  English  church  in  America  from 
the  English  crown  was  the  occasion  of  a  curious  difficulty 
with  regard  to  the  ordination  of  bishops.  Until  after  the 
Revolution  there  were  no  bishops  of  that  church  in  America, 
and  between  1783  and  1785  it  was  not  clear  how  candidates 

for  holy  orders  could  receive  the  necessary  conse- 
Weems  cration.  In  1784  a  young  divinity  student  from 
uei  Sea-  Virginia,  named  Mason  Weems,  who  had  been 

studying  for  some  time  in  England,  applied  to 
the  Bishop  of  London  for  admission  to  holy  orders,  but 
was  rudely  refused.  Weems  then  had  recourse  to  Watson, 
Bishop  of  Llandaff,  author  of  the  famous  reply  to  Gibbon. 
Watson  treated  him  kindly  and  advised  him  to  get  a  letter 
of  recommendation  from  the  governor  of  Maryland,  but  after 
this  had  been  obtained  he  referred  him  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  who  said  that  nothing  could  be  done  without 
the  consent  of  Parliament.  As  the  law  stood,  no  one  could 
be  admitted  into  the  ranks  of  the  English  clergy  without 
taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  acknowledging  the  king  of 
England  as  the  head  of  the  church.  Weems  then  wrote 
to  John  Adams  at  the  Hague,  and  to  Franklin  at  Paris,  to 
see  if  there  were  any  Protestant  bishops  on  the  Continent 
from  whom  he  could  obtain  consecration.  A  rather  amusing 
diplomatic  correspondence  ensued,  and  finally  the  king  of 
Denmark,  after  taking  theological  advice,  kindly  offered  the 


1784  THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  85 

services  of  a  Danish  bishop,  who  was  to  perform  the  cere 
mony  in  Latin.  Weems  does  not  seem  to  have  availed  him 
self  of  this  permission,  probably  because  the  question  soon 
reached  a  more  satisfactory  solution.1  About  the  same 


time  the  Episcopal  church  in  Connecticut  sent  one  of  its 
ministers,  Samuel  Seabury  of  New  London,  to  England,  to 

1  It  was  this  same  Mason  Weems  that  was  afterward  known  in  Vir 
ginia  as  Parson  WTeems,  of  Pohick  parish,  near  Mount  Vernon.  See 
Magazine  of  American  History,  iii.  465-472;  v.  85-90.  At  first  an 
eccentric  preacher,  Parson  Weems  became  an  itinerant  violin-player  and 
book-peddler,  and  author  of  that  edifying  work,  The  Life  of  George 
Washington,  with  Curious  Anecdotes  equally  Honourable  to  Himself 
and  Exemplary  to  his  Young  Countrymen.  On  the  title-page  the 
author  describes  himself  as  "  formerly  rector  of  Mount  Vernon  Parish," 
-which  Bishop  Meade  calls  preposterous.  The  book  is  a  farrago  of 
absurdities,  reminding  one,  alike  in  its  text  and  its  illustrations,  of  an 
overgrown  English  chap-book  of  the  olden  time.  It  has  had  an  enor 
mous  sale,  and  has  very  likely  contributed  more  than  any  other  single 
book  toward  forming  the  popular  notion  of  Washington.  It  seems  to 
have  been  this  fiddling  parson  that  first  gave  currency  to  the  everlasting 
story  of  the  cherry-tree  and  the  little  hatchet. 


86  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

be  ordained  as  bishop.  The  oaths  of  allegiance  and  suprem 
acy  stood  as  much  in  the  way  of  the  learned  and  famous 
minister  as  in  that  of  the  young  and  obscure  student.  Sea- 
November  bury  accordingly  appealed  to  the  non-juring  Jaco- 
14, 1784  bite  bishops  of  the  Episcopal  church  of  Scotland, 
and  at  length  was  duly  ordained  at  Aberdeen  as  bishop  of 
the  diocese  of  Connecticut.  While  Seabury  was  in  Eng 
land,  the  churches  in  the  various  states  chose  delegates 
to  a  general  convention,  which  framed  a  constitution  for 
the  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States  of 
America."  Advowsons  were  abolished,  some  parts  of  the 
liturgy  were  dropped,  and  the  tenure  of  ministers,  even  of 
bishops,  was  to  be  during  good  behaviour.  At  the  same 
time  a  friendly  letter  was  sent  to  the  bishops  of  England, 
urging  them  to  secure,  if  possible,  an  act  of  Parliament 
whereby  American  clergymen  might  be  ordained  without 
taking  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy.  Such  an  act 
was  obtained  without  much  difficulty,  and  three  American 
bishops  were  accordingly  consecrated  in  due  form.  The 
peculiar  ordination  of  Seabury  was  also  recognized  as  valid 
by  the  general  convention,  and  thus  the  Episcopal  church  in 
America  was  fairly  started  on  its  independent  career. 

This  foundation  of  a  separate  episcopacy  west  of  the  At 
lantic  was  accompanied  by  the  further  separation  of  the 
Methodists  as  a  distinct  religious  society.  Although  John 
Wesley  regarded  the  notion  of  an  apostolical  succession  as 
superstitious,  he  had  made  no  attempt  to  separate  his  fol 
lowers  from  the  national  church.  He  translated  the  titles 
of  "  bishop  "  and  "  priest  "  from  Greek  into  Latin  and  Eng 
lish,  calling  them  "  superintendent  "  and  "  elder,"  but  he  did 
not  deny  the  king's  headship.  Meanwhile  during  the  long 
period  of  his  preaching  there  had  begun  to  grow  up  a  Metho 
dist  church  in  America.  George  Whitefield  had  come  over 
and  preached  in  Georgia  in  1737,  and  in  Massachusetts  in 
1744,  where  he  encountered  much  opposition  on  the  part 
of  the  Puritan  clergy.  But  the  first  Methodist  church  in 
America  was  founded  in  the  city  of  New  York  in  1766.  In 


1 784 


THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


1772  Wesley  sent  over  Francis  Asbury,  a  man  of  shrewd 
sense   and   deep   religious   feeling,  to   act   as   his    Francis 
assistant  and  representative  in  this   country.     At   4?Siod 
that  time  there  were  not  more  than  a  thousand   dists 
Methodists,  with  six  preachers,  and  all  these  were  in  the 
middle  and  southern  colonies  ;  but  within  five  years,  largely 
owing  to  the  zeal  and  eloquence  of  Asbury,  these  numbers 


had  increased  sevenfold.  At  the  end  of  the  war,  seeing  the 
American  Methodists  cut  loose  from  the  English  establish 
ment,  Wesley  in  his  own  house  at  Bristol,  with  the  aid  of 
two  presbyters,  proceeded  to  ordain  ministers  enough  to 
make  a  presbytery,  and  thereupon  set  apart  Thomas  Coke 
to  be  "superintendent"  or  bishop  for  America.  On  the 
same  day  of  November,  1784,  on  which  Seabury  was  conse 
crated  by  the  non-jurors  at  Aberdeen,  Coke  began  preach 
ing  and  baptizing  in  Maryland,  in  rude  chapels  built  of  logs 


THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

or  under  the  shade  of  forest  trees.  On  Christmas  Eve  a 
conference  assembled  at  Baltimore,  at  which  Asbury  was 
chosen  bishop  by  some  sixty  ministers  present,  and  ordained 
by  Coke,  and  the  constitution  of  the  Methodist  church  in 
America  was  organized.  Among  the  poor  white  people  of 
the  southern  states,  and  among  the  negroes,  the  new  church 
rapidly  obtained  great  sway ;  and  at  a  somewhat  later  date  it 
began  to  assume  considerable  proportions  in  the  north. 

Four  years  after  this  the  Presbyterians,  who  were  most 
numerous  in  the  middle  states,  organized  their  government 
in  a  general  assembly,  which  was  also  attended  by  Congre- 
gationalist  delegates  from  New  England  in  the  capacity  of 
simple  advisers.  The  theological  difference  between  these 
two  sects  was  so  slight  that  an  alliance  grew  up  between 
them,  and  outside  of  New  England  their  names  have  come 
to  be  inaccurately  used  as  if  synonymous.1  Such  a  dif 
ference  seemed  to  vanish  when  confronted  with  the  newer 
Presby-  differences  that  began  to  spring  up  soon  after  the 
Roman'  close  of  the  Revolution.  The  revolt  against  the 
Catholics  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  was  already  begin 
ning  in  New  England,  and  among  the  learned  and  thought 
ful  clergy  of  'Massachusetts  the  seeds  of  Unitarianism  were 
germinating.  The  gloomy  intolerance  of  an  older  time  was 
beginning  to  yield  to  more  enlightened  views.  In  1789  the 
first  Roman  Catholic  church  in  New  England  was  dedicated 
in  Boston.  So  great  had  been  the  prejudice  against  this 
sect  that  in  1784  there  were  only  600  Catholics  in  all  New 
England.  In  the  four  southernmost  states,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  were  2,500  ;  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey  there 
were  1,700;  in  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania  there  were  7,700; 
in  Maryland  there  were  20,000 ;  while  among  the  French 
settlements  along  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Mississippi  there 
were  supposed  to  be  nearly  12,000.  In  1786  John  Carroll, 
a  cousin  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  was  selected  by 
the  Pope  as  his  apostolic  vicar,  and  was  afterward  succes- 

1  Even  in  Connecticut  I  have  heard  Congregationalists  called  Pres 
byterians,  but  never  in  Massachusetts. 


1 784 


THE    THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS 


89 


sively  made  bishop  of  Baltimore  and  archbishop  of  the 
United  States.  By  1789  all  obstacles  to  the  Catholic  wor 
ship  had  been  done  away  with  in  all  the  states. 

In  this  brief  survey  of  the  principal  changes  wrought  in 
the   several   states   by  the   separation   from   England,  one 


cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  their  conservative  character. 
Things  proceeded  just  as  they  had  done  from  time  imme 
morial  with  the  English  race.  Forms  of  government  were 
modified  just  far  enough  to  adapt  them  to  the  new  situation 


9o  THE    CRITICAL  PERIOD  CHAP,  n 

and  no  farther.  The  abolition  of  entails,  of  primogeniture, 
and  of  such  few  manorial  privileges  as  existed,  were  useful 
reforms  of  far  less  sweeping  character  than  similar  changes 
would  have  been  in  England ;  and  they  were  accordingly 
effected  with  ease.  Even  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
northern  states,  where  negroes  were  few  in  number  and 
chiefly  employed  in  domestic  service,  wrought  nothing  in 
the  remotest  degree  resembling  a  social  revolution.  But 
nowhere  was  this  constitutionally  cautious  and  precedent- 
loving  mode  of  proceeding  more  thoroughly  exemplified  than 
in  the  measures  just  related,  whereby  the  Episcopal  and 
Methodist  churches  were  separated  from  the  English  estab 
lishment  and  placed  upon  an  independent  footing  in  the  new 
Except  world.  From  another  point  of  view  it  may  be  ob- 
instance  served  that  all  these  changes,  except  in  the  in- 
Of  slavery,  stance  of  slavery,  tended  to  assimilate  the  states  to 

all  these  .   . 

changes  one  another  in  their  political  and  social  condition, 
flv^urabie  So  far  as  they  went,  these  changes  were  favour- 
to  union  a^ie  to  unjori)  and  this  was  perhaps  especially  true 
in  the  case  of  the  ecclesiastical  bodies,  which  brought  citi 
zens  of  different  states  into  cooperation  in  pursuit  of  specific 
ends  in  common. 

At  the  same  time  this  survey  most  forcibly  reminds  us 
how  completely  the  legislation  wrhich  immediately  affected 
the  daily  domestic  life  of  the  citizen  was  the  legislation  of 
the  single  state  in  which  he  lived.  In  the  various  reforms 
just  passed  in  review  the  United  States  government  took 
no  part,  and  could  not  from  the  nature  of  the  case.  Even 
to-day  our  national  government  has  no  power  over  such 
matters,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  it  never  will  have.  But  at  the 
present  day  our  national  government  performs  many  impor 
tant  functions  of  common  concern,  which  a  century  ago  were 
scarcely  performed  at  all.  The  organization  of  the  single 
state  was  old  in  principle  and  well  understood  by  everybody. 
It  therefore  worked  easily,  and  such  changes  as  those  above 
described  were  brought  about  with  little  friction.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  principles  upon  which  the  various  relations 


1784  THE   THIRTEEN    COMMONWEALTHS  91 

of  the  states  to  each  other  were  to  be  adjusted  were  not 
well  understood.  There  was  wide  disagreement  upon  the 
subject,  and  the  attempt  to  compromise  between  opposing 
views  was  not  at  first  successful.  Hence,  in  the  manage 
ment  of  affairs  which  concerned  the  United  States  as  a 
nation,  we  shall  not  find  the  central  machinery  working 
smoothly  or  quietly.  We  are  about  to  traverse  a  period  of 
uncertainty  and  confusion,  in  which  it  required  all  the  politi 
cal  sagacity  and  all  the  good  temper  of  the  people  to  save 
the  half-built  ship  of  state  from  going  to  pieces  on  the  rocks 
of  civil  contention. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP 

THAT  some  kind  of  union  existed  between  the  states  was 
doubted  by  no  one.  Ever  since  the  assembling  of  the  first 
Continental  Congress  in  1774  the  thirteen  commonwealths 
had  acted  in  concert,  and  sometimes  most  generously,  as 
when  Maryland  and  South  Carolina  had  joined  in  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence  without  any  crying  grievances  of 
their  own,  from  a  feeling  that  the  cause  of  one  should  be  the 
cause  of  all.  It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  the  Union 
was  in  its  origin  a  league  of  sovereign  states,  each  of  which 
surrendered  a  specific  portion  of  its  sovereignty  to  the  federal 
government  for  the  sake  of  the  common  welfare.  Grave 
political  arguments  had  been  based  upon  this  alleged  fact, 
but  such  an  account  of  the  matter  is  not  historically  true. 
There  never  was  a  time  when  Massachusetts  or  Virginia 
was  an  absolutely  sovereign  state  like  Holland  or  France. 
Sovereign  over  their  own  internal  affairs  they  are  to-day  as 
they  were  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  but  there  was 
never  a  time  when  they  presented  themselves  before  other 
nations  as  sovereign,  or  were  recognized  as  such.  Under 
the  government  of  England  before  the  Revolution  the  thir 
teen  commonwealths  were  independent  of  one  another,  and 
were  held  together,  juxtaposed  rather  than  united, 
era? states  only  through  their  allegiance  to  the  British  crown. 
enj>eyedver  Had  tnat  allegiance  been  maintained  there  is  no 
complete  telling-  how  long  they  might  have  gone  on  thus 

sovereignty  °  J  ° 

disunited ;  and  this,  it  seems,  should  be  one  of 
our  chief  reasons  for  rejoicing  that  the  political  connection 
with  England  was  dissolved  when  it  was.  A  permanent  re 
dress  of  grievances,  and  even  virtual  independence  such  as 


94  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

Canada  now  enjoys,  we  might  perhaps  have  gained  had  we 
listened  to  Lord  North's  proposals  after  the  surrender  of 
Burgoyne  ;  but  the  formation  of  the  Federal  Union  would 
certainly  have  been  long  postponed,  and  when  we  realize  the 
grandeur  of  the  work  which  we  are  now  doing  in  the  world 
through  the  simple  fact  of  such  a  union,  we  must  believe 
that  such  an  issue  would  have  been  unfortunate.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  until  the  connection  with  Eng 
land  was  severed  the  thirteen  commonwealths  were  not 
united,  nor  were  they  sovereign.  It  is  also  clear  that  in  the 
very  act  of  severing  their  connection  with  England  these 
commonwealths  entered  into  some  sort  of  union  which  was 
incompatible  with  their  absolute  sovereignty  taken  severally. 
It  was  not  the  people  of  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts, 
and  so  on  through  the  list,  that  declared  their  independence 
of  Great  Britain,  but  it  was  the  representatives  of  the  United 
States  in  Congress  assembled,  and  speaking  as  a  single  body 
in  the  name  of  the  whole.  It  was  not  the  segments  of  the 
snake,  but  the  creature  in  its  integrity,  that  captured  two 
British  armies. 

Three  weeks  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
adopted,  Congress  appointed  a  committee  to  draw  up  the 
"articles  of  confederation  and  perpetual  union,"  by  which 
the  sovereignty  of  the  several  states  was  expressly  limited 
and  curtailed  in  many  important  particulars.  This  com 
mittee  had  finished  its  work  by  the  I2th  of  July,  but  the 
articles  were  not  adopted  by  Congress  until  the  autumn  of 
1777,  and  they  were  not  finally  put  into  operation  until  the 
spring  of  1781.  During  this  inchoate  period  of  union  the 
action  of  the  United  States  was  that  of  a  confederation  in 
which  some  portion  of  the  several  sovereignties  was  under 
stood  to  be  surrendered  to  the  whole.  It  was  the  business 
of  the  articles  to  define  the  precise  nature  and  extent  of  this 
surrendered  sovereignty  which  no  state  by  itself  ever  exer 
cised.  In  the  mean  time  this  sovereignty,  undefined  in 
nature  and  extent,  was  exercised,  as  well  as  circumstances 
permitted,  by  the  Continental  Congress. 


I77-H 


THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP 


95 


A  most  remarkable  body  was  this  Continental  Congress. 
For  the  vicissitudes  through  which  it  passed,  there 
is  perhaps  no  other  revolutionary  body,  save  the 
Long  Parliament,  which  can  be  compared  with  it. 
For  its  origin  we  must  look  back  to  the  committees 
of  correspondence  devised  by  Jonathan  Mayhew, 
Samuel  Adams,  and  Dabney  Carr.  First  assembled  in  1774 


£°nefte/as0'r_ 
dinary 


to  meet  an  emergency  which  was  generally  believed  to  be 
only  temporary,  it  continued  to  sit  for  nearly  seven  years 
before  its  powers  were  ever  clearly  defined  ;  and  during 
those  seven  years  it  exercised  some  of  the  highest  functions 


96  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

of  sovereignty  which  are  possible  to  any  governing  body. 
It  declared  the  independence  of  the  United  States ;  it  con 
tracted  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  with  France  ;  it 
raised  and  organized  a  Continental  army  ;  it  borrowed  large 
sums  of  money,  and  pledged  what  the  lenders  understood 
to  be  the  national  credit  for  their  repayment ;  it  issued  an 
inconvertible  paper  currency,  granted  letters  of  marque,  and 
built  a  navy.  All  this  it  did  in  the  exercise  of  what  in  later 
times  would  have  been  called  "  implied  war  powers,"  and  its 
authority  rested  upon  the  general  acquiescence  in  the  pur 
poses  for  which  it  acted  and  in  the  measures  which  it 
adopted.  Under  such  circumstances  its  functions  were  very 
inefficiently  performed.  But  the  articles  of  confederation, 
which  in  1781  denned  its  powers,  served  at  the  same  time  to 
limit  them  ;  so  that  for  the  remaining  eight  years  of  its  exist 
ence  the  Continental  Congress  grew  weaker  and  weaker, 
until  it  was  swept  away  to  make  room  for  a  more  efficient 
government. 

John  Dickinson  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  principal 
author  of  the  articles  of  confederation  ;  but  as  the 

The  arti- 

cies  of  con-  work  of  the  committee  was  done  in  secret  and  has 
never  been  reported,  the  point  cannot  be  deter 
mined.  In  November,  1777,  Congress  sent  the  articles  to 
the  several  state  legislatures,  with  a  circular  letter  recom 
mending  them  as  containing  the  only  plan  of  union  at  all 
likely  to  be  adopted.  In  the  course  of  the  next  fifteen 
months  the  articles  were  ratified  by  all  the  states  except 
Maryland,  which  refused  to  sign  until  the  states  laying 
claim  to  the  northwestern  lands,  and  especially  Virginia, 
should  surrender  their  claims  to  the  confederation.  We 
shall  by  and  by  see,  when  we  come  to  explain  this  point  in 
detail,  that  from  this  action  of  Maryland  there  flowed  benefi 
cent  consequences  that  were  little  dreamed  of.  It  was  first 
in  the  great  chain  of  events  which  led  directly  to  the  forma 
tion  of  the  Federal  Union.  Having  carried  her  point,  Mary 
land  ratified  the  articles  on  the  first  day  of  March,  1781  ; 
and  thus  in  the  last  and  most  brilliant  period  of  the  war, 


THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP 


97 


while  Greene  was  leading  Cornwallis  on  his  fatal  chase  across 
North  Carolina,  the  confederation  proposed  at  the  time  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  finally  consummated. 
According   to   the   language   of   the   articles,  the   states 


\. 


•entered  into  a  firm  league  of  friendship  with  each  other ; 
and  in  order  to  secure  and  perpetuate  such  friendship,  the 
freemen  of  each  state  were  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and 
immunities  of  freemen  in  all  the  other  states.  Mutual  extra 
dition  of  criminals  was  established,  and  in  each  state  full 
faith  and  credit  was  to  be  given  to  the  records,  acts,  and 
judicial  proceedings  of  every  other  state.  This  universal 
intercitizenship  was  what  gave  reality  to  the  nascent  and 
feeble  Union.  In  all  the  common  business  relations  of  life, 


98  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

the  man  of  New  Hampshire  could  deal  with  the  man  of 
Georgia  on  an  equal  footing  before  the  law.  But  this  was 
almost  the  only  effectively  cohesive  prevision  in  the  whole 
instrument.  Throughout  the  remainder  of  the  articles  its 
language  was  largely  devoted  to  reconciling  the  theory  that 
the  states  were  severally  sovereign  with  the  visible  fact  that 
they  were  already  merged  to  some  extent  in  a  larger  politi 
cal  body.  The  sovereignty  of  this  larger  body  was  vested  in 
the  Congress  of  delegates  appointed  yearly  by  the  states. 
No  state  was  to  be  represented  by  less  than  two  or  more 
than  seven  members  ;  no  one  could  be  a  delegate  for  more 
than  three  years  out  of  every  six  ;  and  no  delegate  could  hold 
any  salaried  office  under  the  United  States.  As  in  colonial 
times  the  states  had,  to  preserve  their  self-government,  in 
sisted  upon  paying  their  governors  and  judges,  instead  of 
allowing  them  to  be  paid  out  of  the  royal  treasury,  so  now 
the  delegates  in  Congress  were  paid  by  their  own  states. 
In  determining  questions  in  Congress,  each  state  had  one 
vote,  without  regard  to  population  ;  but  a  bare  majority  was 
not  enough  to  carry  any  important  measure.  Not  only  for 
such  extraordinary  matters  as  wars  and  treaties,  but  even  for 
the  regular  and  ordinary  business  of  raising  money  to  carry 
on  the  government,  not  a  single  step  could  be  taken  without 
the  consent  of  at  least  nine  of  the  thirteen  states ;  and  this 
provision  well-nigh  sufficed  of  itself  to  block  the  wheels  of 
federal  legislation.  The  Congress  assembled  each  year  on 
the  first  Monday  of  November,  and  could  not  adjourn  for  a 
longer  period  than  six  months.  During  its  recess  the  con 
tinuity  of  government  was  preserved  by  an  executive  com 
mittee,  consisting  of  one  delegate  from  each  state,  and 
known  as  the  "  committee  of  the  states."  Saving  such  mat 
ters  of  warfare  or  treaty  as  the  public  interest  might  require 
to  be  kept  secret,  all  the  proceedings  of  Congress  were 
entered  in  a  journal,  to  be  published  monthly ;  and  the  yeas 
and  nays  must  be  entered  should  any  delegate  request  it. 
The  executive  departments  of  war,  finance,  and  so  forth  were 
intrusted  at  first  to  committees,  until  experience  soon  showed 


1774-89 


THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP 


99 


the  necessity  of  single  heads.  There  was  a  president  of  Con 
gress,  who,  as  representing  the  dignity  of  the  United  States, 
was,  in  a  certain  sense,  the  foremost  person  in  the  country, 
but  he  had  no  more  power  than  any  other  delegate.  Of  the 
fourteen  presidents  between  1774  and  1789,  perhaps  only 
Randolph,  Hancock,  and  Laurens  are  popularly  remembered 


in  that  capacity  ;  Jay,  St.  Clair,  Mifflin,  and  Lee  are  remem 
bered  for  other  things  ;  Hanson,  Griffin,  Gorham,  and  Bou- 
dinot  are  scarcely  remembered  at  all,  save  by  the  student  of 
American  history. 

Between  the  Congress  thus  constituted  and  the  several 
state  governments  the  attributes  of  sovereignty  were  shared 
in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  minimum  of  result  with  a 
maximum  of  effort.  The  states  were  prohibited  from  keep- 


100 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  Ill 


ing  up  any  naval  or  military  force,  except  militia,  or  from 
entering  into  any  treaty  or  alliance,  either  with  a  foreign 
power  or  between  themselves,  without  the  consent  of  Con 
gress.  No  state  could  engage  in  war  except  by  way  of 
defence  against  a  sudden  Indian  attack.  Congress  had  the 
sole  right  of  determining  on  peace  and  war,  of  sending  and 
receiving  ambassadors,  of  making  treaties,  of  adjudicating 
all  disputes  between  the  states,  of  managing  Indian  affairs, 
and  of  regulating  the  value  of  coin  and  fixing  the  standard  of 


weights  and  measures.  Congress  took  control  of  the  post- 
office  on  condition  that  no  more  revenue  should  be  raised 
from  postage  than  should  suffice  to  discharge  the  expenses 
of  the  service.  Congress  controlled  the  army,  but  was  pro 
vided  with  no  means  of  raising  soldiers  save  through  requi 
sitions  upon  the  states,  and  it  could  only  appoint  officers 


1774-89  THE    LEAGUE   OF   FRIENDSHIP^  '    101 


above  the  rank  of  colonel  ;  the  organization ^o 
was  left  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  states.  The  traditional 
and  wholesome  dread  of  a  standing  army  was  great,  but  there 
was  no  such  deep-seated  jealousy  of  a  navy,  and  Congress 
was  accordingly  allowed  not  only  to  appoint  all  naval  officers, 
but  also  to  establish  courts  of  admiralty. 

Several  essential  attributes  of  sovereignty  were  thus  with 
held  from  the  states  ;  and  by  assuming  all  debts  contracted 
by  Congress  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  articles,  and  sol 
emnly  pledging  the  public  faith  for  their  payment,  it  was 
implicitly  declared  that  the  sovereignty  here  accorded  to 
Congress  was  substantially  the  same  as  that  which  it  had 
asserted  and  exercised  ever  since  the  severing  of  the  connec 
tion  with  England.  The  articles  simply  defined  the  relations 
of  the  states  to  the  Confederation  as  they  had  already  shaped 
themselves.  Indeed,  the  articles,  though  not  finally  ratified 
till  1781,  had  been  known  to  Congress  and  to  the  people 
ever  since  1776  as  their  expected  constitution,  and  political 
action  had  been  shaped  in  general  accordance  with  the 
theory  on  which  they  had  been  drawn  up.  They  show  that 
political  action  was  at  no  time  based  on  the  view  of  the  states 
as  absolutely  sovereign,  but  they  also  show  that  the  share  of 
sovereignty  accorded  to  Congress  was  very  inadequate  even 
to  the  purposes  of  an  effective  confederation.  The  position 
in  which  they  left  Congress  was  hardly  more  than  that  of 
the  deliberative  head  of  a  league.  For  the  most  The  arti. 
fundamental  of  all  the  attributes  of  sovereignty  -  -  ^e^J|da 
the  power  of  taxation  — was  not  given  to  Congress,  federal 
It  could  neither  raise  taxes  through  an  excise  nor  ment  en- 
through  custom-house  duties  ;  it  could  only  make  fe°aiesover-h 
requisitions  upon  the  thirteen  members  of  the  con-  eisnty 
federacy  in  proportion  to  the  assessed  value  of  their  real 
estate,  and  it  was  not  provided  with  any  means  of  enforcing 
these  requisitions.  On  this  point  the  articles  contained 
nothing  beyond  the  vague  promise  of  the  states  to  obey. 
The  power  of  levying  taxes  was  thus  retained  entirely  by 
the  states.  They  not  only  imposed  direct  taxes,  as  they  do 


IO2 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

r  jxut  ihtey^laid  duties  on  exports  and  imports,  each 
according  to  its  own  narrow  view  of  its  local  interests. 
The  only  restriction  upon  this  was  that  such  state-imposed 
duties  must  not  interfere  with  the  stipulations  of  any  for 
eign  treaties  such  as  Congress  might  make  in  pursuance  of 
treaties  already  proposed  to  the  courts  of  France  and  Spain. 
Besides  all  this,  the  states  shared  with  Congress  the  powers 
of  coining  money,  of  emitting  bills  of  credit,  and  of  making 
their  promissory  notes  a  legal  tender  for  debts. 

Such  was  the  constitution  under  which  the  United  States 
had  begun  to  drift  toward  anarchy  even  before  the  close  of 
the  Revolutionary  War,  but  which  could  only  be  amended 
by  the  unanimous  consent  of  all  the  thirteen  states.  The 
historian  cannot  but  regard  this  difficulty  of  amendment  as 
a  fortunate  circumstance  ;  for  in  the  troubles  which  pre 
sently  arose  it  led  the  distressed  people  to  seek  some  other 
method  of  relief,  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  Conven 
tion  of  1787,  which  destroyed  the  whole  vicious  scheme,  and 
gave  us  a  form  of  government  under  which  we  have  just 
completed  a  century  unparalleled  for  peace  and  prosperity. 
Besides  this  extreme  difficulty  of  amendment,  the  fatal  de 
fects  of  the  Confederation  were  three  in  number.  The  first 
defect  was  the  two  thirds  vote  necessary  for  any  important 
legislation  in  Congress  ;  under  this  rule  any  five  of  the  states 
—  as,  for  example,  the  four  southernmost  states  with  Mary 
land,  or  the  four  New  England  states  with  New  Jersey  — 
could  defeat  the  most  sorely  needed  measures.  The  second 
defect  was  the  impossibility  of  presenting  a  united  front  to 
foreign  countries  in  respect  to  commerce.  The  third  and 
greatest  defect  was  the  lack  of  any  means,  on  the  part  of 
Congress,  of  enforcing  obedience.  Not  only  was  there  no 
federal  executive  or  judiciary  worthy  of  the  name,  but  the 
central  government  operated  only  upon  states,  and  not  upon 
individuals.  Congress  could  call  for  troops  and  for  money 
in  strict  conformity  with  the  articles  ;  but  should  any  state 
prove  delinquent  in  furnishing  its  quota,  there  were  no  con 
stitutional  means  of  compelling  it  to  obey  the  call.  This 


1774-89  THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP  103 

defect  was  seen  and  deplored  at  the  outset  by  such  men  as 
Washington  and  Madison,  but  the  only  remedy  which  at  first 
occurred  to  them  was  one  more  likely  to  kill  than  to  cure. 
Only  six  weeks  after  the  ratification  of  the  articles,  Madison 
proposed  an  amendment  "  to  give  to  the  United  States  full 


s 

authority  to  employ  their  force,  as  well  by  sea  as  by  land, 
to  compel  any  delinquent  state  to  fulfil  its  federal  engage 
ments."  Washington  approved  of  this  measure,  hoping,  as 
he  said,  that  "  a  knowledge  that  this  power  was  lodged  in 
Congress  might  be  the  means  to  prevent  its  ever  being  exer 
cised,  and  the  more  readily  induce  obedience.  Indeed," 
added  Washington,  "  if  Congress  were  unquestionably  pos 
sessed  of  the  power,  nothing  should  induce  the  display  of  it 
but  obstinate  disobedience  and  the  urgency  of  the  general 
welfare."  Madison  argued  that  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
Confederation  such  a  right  of  coercion  was  necessarily  im- 


104  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

plied,  though  not  expressed  in  the  articles,  and  much  might 
have  been  said  in  behalf  of  this  opinion.  The  Confederation 
explicitly  declared  itself  to  be  perpetual,  yet  how  could  it 
perpetuate  itself  for  a  dozen  years  without  the  right  to  coerce 
its  refractory  members  ?  Practically,  however,  the  remedy 
was  one  which  could  never  have  been  applied  without  break 
ing  the  Confederation  into  fragments.  To  use  the  army  or 
navy  in  coercing  a  state  meant  nothing  less  than  civil  war. 
The  local  yeomanry  would  have  turned  out  against  the  Con 
tinental  army  with  as  high  a  spirit  as  that  with  which  they 
swarmed  about  the  British  enemy  at  Lexington  or  King's 
Mountain.  A  government  which  could  not  collect  the  taxes 
for  its  yearly  budget  without  firing  upon  citizens  or  blockad 
ing  two  or  three  harbours  would  have  been  the  absurdest 
political  anomaly  imaginable.  No  such  idea  could  have 
entered  the  mind  of  a  statesman  save  from  the  hope  that  if 
one  state  should  prove  refractory,  all  the  others  would  imme 
diately  frown  upon  it  and  uphold  Congress  in  overawing  it. 
In  such  case  the  knowledge  that  Congress  had  the  power 
would  doubtless  have  been  enough  to  make  its  exercise 
unnecessary.  But  in  fact  this  hope  was  disappointed,  for 
the  delinquency  of  each  state  simply  set  an  example  of  dis 
obedience  for  all  the  others  to  follow  ;  and  the  amendment, 
had  it  been  carried,  would  merely  have  armed  Congress  with 
a  threat  which  everybody  would  have  laughed  at.  So  mani 
festly  hopeless  was  the  case  to  Pelatiah  Webster  that,  as 
early  as  May,  1781,  he  published  an  able  pamphlet,  urging 
the  necessity  for  a  federal  convention  for  overhauling  the 
whole  scheme  of  government  from  beginning  to  end. 

The  military  weakness  due  to  this  imperfect  governmental 
Miiitar  organization  may  be  illustrated  by  comparing  the 
weakness  number  of  regular  troops  which  Congress  was  able 
govern-  to  keep  in  the  field  during  the  Revolutionary  War 
with  the  number  maintained  by  the  United  States 
government  during  the  War  of  Secession.  A  rough  esti 
mate,  obtained  from  averages,  will  suffice  to  show  the  broad 
contrast.  In  1863,  the  middle  year  of  the  War  of  Seces- 


1 774-* 


THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP 


105 


sion,  the  total  population  of  the  loyal  states  was  about 
23,491,600,  of  whom  about  one  fifth,  or  4,698,320,  were 
adult  males  of  military  age.  Supposing  one  adult  male  out 
of  every  five  to  have  been  under  arms  at  one  time,  the  num 
ber  would  have  been  939,664.  Now  the  total  number  of 
troops  enlisted  in  the  northern  army  during  the  four  years 


of  the  war,  reduced  to  a  uniform  standard,  was  2,320,272,  or 
an  average  of  580,068  under  arms  in  any  single  year.  In 
point  of  fact,  this  average  was  reached  before  the  middle  of 
the  war,  and  the  numbers  went  on  increasing,  until  at  the  end 
there  were  more  than  a  million  men  under  arms,  —  at  least 
one  out  of  every  five  adult  males  in  the  northern  states.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  1779,  the  middle  year  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  the  white  population  of  the  United  States  was  about 
2,175,000,  of  whom  435,000  were  adult  males  of  military 
age.  Supposing  one  out  of  every  five  of  these  to  have  been 


io6  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

under  arms  at  once,  the  number  would  have  been  87,000. 
Now  in  the  spring  of  1777,  when  the  Continental  Congress 
was  at  the  highest  point  of  authority  which  it  ever  reached, 
when  France  was  willing  to  lend  it  money  freely,  when  its 
paper  currency  was  not  yet  discredited  and  it  could  make 
liberal  offers  of  bounties,  a  demand  was  made  upon  the  states 
for  80,000  men,  or  nearly  one  fifth  of  the  adult  male  popu 
lation,  to  serve  for  three  years  or  during  the  war.  Only 
34,820  were  obtained.  The  total  number  of  men  in  the  field 
in  that  most  critical  year,  including  the  swarms  of  militia 
who  came  to  the  rescue  at  Ridgefield  and  Bennington  and 
Oriskany,  and  the  Pennsylvania  militia  who  turned  out  while 
their  state  was  invaded,  was  68,720.  In  1781,  when  the 
credit  of  Congress  was  greatly  impaired,  although  military 
activity  again  rose  to  a  maximum  and  it  was  necessary  for 
the  people  to  strain  every  nerve,  the  total  number  of  men 
in  the  field,  militia  and  all,  was  only  29,340,  of  whom  only 
13,292  were  Continentals  ;  and  it  was  left  for  the  genius  of 
Washington  and  Greene,  working  with  desperate  energy  and 
most  pitiful  resources,  to  save  the  country.  A  more  impres 
sive  contrast  to  the  readiness  with  which  the  demands  of 
the  government  were  met  in  the  War  of  Secession  can 
hardly  be  imagined.  Had  the  country  put  forth  its  strength 
in  1781  as  it  did  in  1864,  an  army  of  90,000  men  might  have 
overwhelmed  Clinton  at  the  north  and  Cornwallis  at  the 
south,  without  asking  any  favours  of  the  French  fleet.  Had 
it  put  forth  its  full  strength  in  1777,  four  years  of  active 
warfare  might  have  been  spared.  Mr.  Lecky  explains  this 
difference  by  his  favourite  hypothesis  that  the  American 
Revolution  was  the  work  of  a  few  ultra-radical  leaders,  with 
whom  the  people  were  not  generally  in  sympathy  ;  and  he 
thinks  we  could  not  expect  to  see  great  heroism  or  self- 
sacrifice  manifested  by  a  people  who  went  to  war  over  what 
he  calls  a  "  money  dispute."  1  But  there  is  no  reason  for 
supposing  that  the  loyalists  represented  the  general  senti 
ment  of  the  country  in  the  Revolutionary  War  any  more 
1  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century ',  iii.  447. 


io8  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  m 

than  the  peace  party  represented  the  general  sentiment  of 
the  northern  states  in  the  War  of  Secession.  There  is  no 
reason  for  supposing  that  the  people  were  less  at  heart  in 
1781,  in  fighting  for  the  priceless  treasure  of  self-government, 
than  they  were  in  1864,  when  they  fought  for  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  pacific  principles  underlying  our  Federal  Union. 
The  differences  in  the  organization  of  the  government,  and 
in  its  power  of  operating  directly  upon  the  people,  are  quite 
enough  to  explain  the  difference  between  the  languid  con 
duct  of  the  earlier  war  and  the  energetic  conduct  of  the 
later. 

Impossible  as  Congress  found  it  to  fill  the  quotas  of  the 
army,  the  task  of  raising  a  revenue  by  requisitions  upon  the 
states  was  even  more  discouraging.  Every  state  had  its 
own  war  debt,  and  several  were  applicants  for  foreign  loans 
not  easy  to  obtain,  so  that  none  could  without  the  greatest 
Extreme  difficulty  raise  a  surplus  to  hand  over  to  Congress. 
The  Continental  rag  money  had  ceased  to  circu- 
\^e  by  the  end  of  1 780,  and  our  foreign  credit  was 
nearly  ruined.  The  French  government  began  to  complain 
of  the  heavy  demands  which  the  Americans  made  upon  its 
exchequer,  and  Vergennes,  in  sending  over  a  new  loan  in 
the  fall  of  1782,  warned  Franklin  that  no  more  must  be 
expected.  To  save  American  credit  from  destruction,  it 
was  at  least  necessary  that  the  interest  on  the  public  debt 
should  be  paid.  For  this  purpose  Congress  in  1781  asked 
permission  to  levy  a  five  per  cent,  duty  on  imports.  The 
modest  request  was  the  signal  for  a  year  of  angry  discussion. 
Again  and  again  it  was  asked,  If  taxes  could  thus  be  levied 
by  any  power  outside  the  state,  why  had  we  ever  opposed 
the  Stamp  Act  or  the  tea  duties  ?  The  question  was  indeed 
a  serious  one,  and  as  an  instance  of  reasoning  from  analogy 
seemed  plausible  enough.  After  more  than  a  year  Massa 
chusetts  consented,  by  a  bare  majority  of  two  in  the  House 
and  one  in  the  Senate,  reserving  to  herself  the  right  of 
appointing  the  collectors.  The  bill  was  then  vetoed  by 
Governor  Hancock,  though  one  day  too  late,  and  so  it  was 


1774-89  THE   LEAGUE    OF   FRIENDSHIP  109 

saved.  But  Rhode  Island  flatly  refused  her  consent,  and  so 
did  Virginia,  though  Madison  earnestly  pleaded  the  cause  of 
the  public  credit.  For  the  current  expenses  of  the  govern 
ment  in  that  same  year  $9,000,000  were  needed.  It  was 
calculated  that  $4,000,000  might  be  raised  by  a  loan,  and 
the  other  $5,000,000  were  demanded  of  the  states.  At 
the  end  of  the  year  $422,000  had  been  collected,  not  a  cent 
of  which  came  from  Georgia,  the  Carolinas,  or  Delaware. 
Rhode  Island,  which  paid  $38,000,  did  the  best  of  all  accord 
ing  to  its  resources.  Of  the  Continental  taxes  assessed  in 
1783,  only  one  fifth  part  had  been  paid  by  the  middle  of 
1785.  And  the  worst  of  it  was  that  no  one  could  point  to  a 
remedy  for  this  state  of  things,  or  assign  any  probable  end 
to  it. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  public  credit  sank  at  home 
as  well  as  abroad.  Foreign  creditors  —  even  France,  who 
had  been  nothing  if  not  generous  with  her  loans  —  might  be 
made  to  wait ;  but  there  were  creditors  at  home  who,  should 
they  prove  ugly,  could  not  be  so  easily  put  off.  The  dis- 
bandment  of  the  army  in  the  summer  of  1783,  before  the 
British  troops  had  evacuated  New  York,  was  hastened  by 
the  impossibility  of  paying  the  soldiers  and  the  dread  of 
what  they  might  do  under  such  provocation.  Though  peace 
had  been  officially  announced,  Hamilton  and  Livingston 
urged  that,  for  the  sake  of  appearances  if  for  no  other  rea 
son,  the  army  should  be  kept  together  so  long  as  the  British 
remained  in  New  York,  if  not  until  they  should  have  sur 
rendered  the  western  frontier  posts.  But  Congress  could 
not  pay  the  army,  and  was  afraid  of  it,  —  and  not  Dread  of 
without  some  reason.  Discouraged  at  the  length  thearmy 
of  time  which  had  passed  since  they  had  received  any 
money,  the  soldiers  had  begun  to  fear  lest,  now  that  their 
services  were  no  longer  needed,  their  honest  claims  would 
be  set  aside.  Among  the  officers,  too,  there  was  grave  dis 
content.  In  the  spring  of  1778,  after  the  dreadful  winter  at 
Valley  Forge,  several  officers  had  thrown  up  their  commis 
sions,  and  others  threatened  to  do  likewise.  To  avert  the 


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ii2  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  m 

danger,  Washington  had  urged  Congress  to  promise  half -pay 
for  life  to  such  officers  as  should  serve  to  the  end  of  the 
war.  It  was  only  with  great  difficulty  that  he  succeeded  in 
obtaining  a  promise  of  half-pay  for  seven  years,  and  even 
this  raised  an  outcry  throughout  the  country,  which  seemed 
to  dread  its  natural  defenders  only  less  than  its  enemies. 
In  the  fall  of  1780,  however,  in  the  general  depression  which 
followed  upon  the  disasters  at  Charleston  and  Camden,  the 
collapse  of  the  paper  money,  and  the  discovery  of  Arnold's 
treason,  there  was  serious  danger  that  the  army  would  fall 
to  pieces.  At  this  critical  moment  Washington  had  ear 
nestly  appealed  to  Congress,  and  against  the  strenuous  oppo 
sition  of  Samuel  Adams  had  at  length  extorted  the  promise 
of  half -pay  for  life.  In  the  spring  of  1782,  seeing  the  utter 
inability  of  Congress  to  discharge  its  pecuniary  obligations, 
many  officers  began  to  doubt  whether  the  promise  would 
ever  be  kept.  It  had  been  made  before  the  articles  of  con 
federation,  which  required  the  assent  of  nine  states  to  any 
such  measure,  had  been  finally  ratified.  It  was  well  known 
that  nine  states  had  never  been  found  to  favour  the  measure, 
and  it  was  now  feared  that  it  might  be  repealed  or  repudi 
ated,  so  loud  was  the  popular  clamour  against  it.  All  this 
comes  of  republican  government,  said  some  of  the  officers ; 
too  many  cooks  spoil  the  broth  ;  a  dozen  heads  are  as  bad 
as  no  head ;  you  do  not  know  whose  promises  to  trust  ;  a 
monarchy,  with  a  good  king  whom  all  men  can  trust,  would 
extricate  us  from  these  difficulties.  In  this  mood,  Colonel 
Louis  Nicola,  of  the  Pennsylvania  line,  a  foreigner  by  birth, 
addressed  a  long  and  well-argued  letter  to  Washington,  set- 
Su  osed  tm&  forth  the  troubles  of  the  time,  and  urging 
scheme  for  him  to  come  forward  as  a  saviour  of  society,  and 
w^hmg-  accept  the  crown  at  the  hands  of  his  faithful  sol- 
mg  diers.  Nicola  was  an  aged  man,  of  excellent  char 
acter,  and  in  making  this  suggestion  he  seemed  to  be  acting 
as  spokesman  of  a  certain  clique  or  party  among  the  offi 
cers,  —  how  numerous  is  not  known.  Washington  instantly 
replied  that  Nicola  could  not  have  found  a  person  to  whom 


1783  THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP  113 

such  a  scheme  could  be  more  odious,  and  he  was  at  a  loss 
to  conceive  what  he  had  ever  done  to  have  it  supposed  that 
he  could  for  one  moment  listen  to  a  suggestion  so  fraught 
with  mischief  to  his  country.  Lest  the  affair,  becoming 
known,  should  enhance  the  popular  distrust  of  the  army, 
Washington  said  nothing  about  it.  But  as  the  year  went 
by,  and  the  outcry  against  half-pay  continued,  and  Congress 
showed  symptoms  of  a  willingness  to  compromise  the  matter, 
the  discontent  of  the  army  increased.  Officers  and  soldiers 
brooded  alike  over  their  wrongs.  "  The  army,"  said  General 
Macdougall,  "is  verging  to  that  state  which,  we  are  told, 
will  make  a  wise  man  mad."  The  peril  of  the  situation  was 
increased  by  the  well-meant  but  injudicious  whisperings  of 
other  public  creditors^  who  believed  that  if  the  army  would 
only  take  a  firm  stand  and  insist  upon  a  grant  of  permanent 
funds  to  Congress  for  liquidating  all  public  debts,  the  states 
could  probably  be  prevailed  upon  to  make  such  a  grant. 
Robert  Morris,  the  able  secretary  of  finance,  held  this  opin 
ion,  and  did  not  believe  that  the  states  could  be  brought 
to  terms  in  any  other  way.  His  namesake  and  assistant, 
Gouverneur  Morris,  held  similar  views,  and  gave  expression 
to  them  in  February,  1783,  in  a  letter  to  General  Greene, 
who  was  still  commanding  in  South  Carolina.  When  Greene 
received  the  letter,  he  urged  upon  the  legislature  of  that 
state,  in  most  guarded  and  moderate  language,  the  para 
mount  need  of  granting  a  revenue  to  Congress,  and  hinted 
that  the  army  would  not  be  satisfied  with  anything  less. 
The  assembly  straightway  flew  into  a  rage,  and  shouted, 
"  No  dictation  by  a  Cromwell !  "  South  Carolina  had  con 
sented  to  the  five  per  cent,  impost,  but  now  she  revoked 
it,  to  show  her  independence,  and  Greene's  eyes  were 
opened  at  once  to  the  danger  of  the  slightest  appearance 
of  military  intervention  in  civil  affairs. 

At  the  same  time  a  violent  outbreak  in  the  army  at 
Newburgh  was  barely  prevented  by  the  unfailing  tact  of 
Washington.  A  rumour  went  about  the  camp  that  it  was 
generally  expected  the  army  would  not  disband  until  the 


ii4  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  m 

question  of  pay  should  be  settled,  and  that  the  public  cred 
itors  looked  to  them  to  make  some  such  demonstration  as 
would  overawe  the  delinquent  states.  General  Gates  had 
lately  emerged  from  the  retirement  in  which  he  had  been 
fain  to  hide  himself  after  Camden,  and  had  rejoined  the 
army,  where  there  was  now  such  a  field  for  intrigue.  An 
odious  aroma  of  impotent  malice  clings  about  his  memory 
on  this  last  occasion  on  which  the  historian  needs  to  notice 
him.  He  plotted  in  secret  with  officers  of  the  staff  and 
others.  One  of  his  staff,  Major  Armstrong,  wrote  an  anon 
ymous  appeal  to  the  troops,  and  another,  Colonel  Barber, 
caused  it  to  be  circulated  about  the  camp.  It  named  the 
next  day  for  a  meeting  to  consj/der  grievances.  Its  language 
was  inflammatory.  '" My  friends  !"  it  said,  "after 

The  dan-  ,  rr      •  i 

gerous  seven  long  years  your  suffering  courage  has  con- 
SiTs"gh  ducted  the  United  States  of  America  through  a 
March  n,  doubtful  and  bloody  war  ;  and  peace  returns  to 
bless  —  whom  ?  A  country  willing  to  redress  your 
wrongs,  cherish  your  worth,  and  reward  your  services  ?  Or 
is  it  rather  a  country  that  tramples  upon  your  rights,  dis 
dains  your  cries,  and  insults  your  distresses  ?  ...  If  such 
be  your  treatment  while  the  swords  you  wear  are  necessary 
for  the  defence  of  America,  what  have  you  to  expect  when 
those  very  swords,  the  instruments  and  companions  of  your 
glory,  shall  be  taken  from  your  sides,  and  no  mark  of  mili 
tary  distinction  left  but  your  wants,  infirmities,  and  scars  ? 
If  you  have  sense  enough  to  discover  and  spirit  to  oppose 
tyranny,  whatever  garb  it  may  assume,  awake  to  your  situa 
tion.  If  the  present  moment  be  lost,  your  threats  hereafter 
will  be  as  empty  as  your  entreaties  now.  Appeal  from  the 
justice  to  the  fears  of  government,  and  suspect  the  man  who 
would  advise  to  longer  forbearance/x' 

Better  English  has  seldom  been  wasjted  in  a  worse  cause. 
Washington,  the  man  who  was  aimed  at  in  the  last  sentence, 
got  hold  of  the  paper  next  day,  just  in  time,  as  he  said,  "  to 
arrest  the  feet  that  stood  wavering  on  a  precipice."  The 
memory  of  the  revolt  of  the  Pennsylvania  line,  which  had  so 


1783 


THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP 


alarmed  the  people  in  1781,  was  still  fresh  in  men's  minds  ; 
and  here  was  an  invitation  to  more  wholesale  mutiny,  which 
could  hardly  fail  to  end  in  bloodshed,  and  might  precipi 
tate  the  perplexed  and  embarrassed  country  into  civil  war. 
Washington  issued  a  general  order,  recognizing  the  exist 
ence  of  the  manifesto,  but  overruling  it  so  far  as  to  appoint 


/ 


1 


the  meeting  for  a  later  day,  with  the  senior  major-general, 
who  happened  to  be  Gates,  to  preside.  This  order,  which 
neither  discipline  nor  courtesy,  could  disregard,  in  a  measure 
tied  Gates1  s  hands,  while  it  gave  Washington  time  to  ascer 
tain  the  extent  of  the  disaffection.  On  the  appointed  day 
he  suddenly  came  into  the  meeting,  and  amid  profoundest 
silence  broke  forth  in  a  most  eloquent  and  touching  speech. 
Sympathizing  keenly  with  the  sufferings  of  his  hearers,  and 
fully  admitting  their  claims,  he  appealed  to  their  better  feel- 


n6  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

ings,  and  reminded  them  of  the  terrible  difficulties  under 
which  Congress  laboured,  and  of  the  folly  of  putting  them 
selves  in  the  wrong.  He  still  counselled  forbearance  as  the 
greatest  of  victories,  and  with  consummate  skill  he  charac 
terized  the  anonymous  appeal  as  undoubtedly  the  work  of 
some  crafty  emissary  of  the  British,  eager  to  disgrace  the 
army  which  they  had  not  been  able  to  vanquish.  All  were 
hushed  by  that  majestic  presence  and  those  solemn  tones. 
The  knowledge  that  he  had  refused  all  pay,  while  enduring 
more  than  any  other  man  in  the  room,  gave  added  weight 
to  every  word.  In  proof  of  the  good  faith  of  Congress  he 
began  reading  a  letter  from  one  of  the  members,  when, 
finding  his  sight  dim,  he  paused  and  took  from  his  pocket 
the  new  pair  of  spectacles  which  the  astronomer  David  Rit- 
tenhouse  had  just  sent  him.  He  had  never  worn  spectacles 
in  public,  and  as  he  put  them  on  he  said,  in  his  simple  man 
ner  and  with  his  pleasant  smile,  "  I  have  grown  gray  in  your 
service,  and  now  find  myself  growing  blind."  While  all 
hearts  were  softened  he  went  on  reading  the  letter,  and  then 
withdrew,  leaving  the  meeting  to  its  deliberations.  There 
was  a  sudden  and  mighty  revulsion  of  feeling.  A  motion 
was  reported  declaring  "unshaken  confidence  in  the  justice 
of  Congress;"  and  it  was  added  that  "the  officers  of  the 
American  army  view  with  abhorrence  and  reject  with  dis 
dain  the  infamous  proposals  contained  in  a  late  anonymous 
address  to  them."  The  crestfallen  Gates,  as  chairman,  had 
nothing  to  do  but  put  the  question  and  report  it  carried 
unanimously  ;  for  if  any  still  remained  obdurate  they  no 
longer  dared  to  show  it.  Washington  immediately  set  forth 
the  urgency  of  the  case  in  an  earnest  letter  to  Congress,  and 
one  week  later  the  matter  was  settled  by  an  act  commuting 
half-pay  for  life  into  a  gross  sum  equal  to  five  years'  full  pay, 
to  be  discharged  at  once  by  certificates  bearing  interest  at 
six  per  cent.  Such  poor  paper  was  all  that  Congress  had  to 
pay  with,  but  it  was  all  ultimately  redeemed  ;  and  while  the 
commutation  was  advantageous  to  the  government,  it  was  at 
the  same  time  greatly  for  the  interest  of  the  officers,  while 


1 783 


THE    LEAGUE    OP^    FRIENDSHIP 


117 


they  were  looking  out  for  new  means  of  livelihood,  to  have 
their  claims  adjusted  at  once,  and  to  receive  something 
which  could  do  duty  as  a  respectable  sum  of  money. 

Nothing,  however,  could  prevent  the  story  of  the  New- 
burgh  affair  from  being  published  all  over  the  country,  and 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON 


it  greatly  added  to  the  distrust  with  which  the  army  was 
regarded  on  general  principles.  What  might  have  happened 
was  forcibly  suggested  by  a  miserable  occurrence  in  June, 
about  two  months  after  the  disbanding  of  the  army  had 
begun.  Some  eighty  soldiers  of  the  Pennsylvania  line,  mu 
tinous  from  discomfort  and  want  of  pay,  broke  from  their 
camp  at  Lancaster  and  marched  down  to  Philadelphia,  led  by 
a  sergeant  or  two.  They  drew  up  in  line  before  the  state 
house,  where  Congress  was  assembled,  and  after  passing  the 


ii8  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

grog  began  throwing  stones  and  pointing  their  muskets  at 

the   windows.     They  demanded   pay,  and   threat- 
Congress  ,    .r  .  r    ,,         .  .       , 

driven  from    ened,  if  it  were  not  forthcoming,  to  seize  the  mem- 

hers  of  Congress   and  hold  them  as  hostages,  or 


™idier°sUS  e^sc  to  ^rea^  mto  tne  bank  where  the  federal 
june2/,  deposits  were  kept.  The  executive  council  of 
Pennsylvania  sat  in  the  same  building,  and  so  the 
federal  government  appealed  to  the  state  government  for 
protection.  The  appeal  was  fruitless.  President  Dickinson 
had  a  few  state  militia  at  his  disposal,  but  did  not  dare  to 
summon  them,  for  fear  they  should  side  with  the  rioters. 
The  city  government  was  equally  listless,  and  the  townsfolk 
went  their  ways  as  if  it  were  none  of  their  business  ;  and  so 
Congress  fled  across  the  river  and  on  to  Princeton,  where 
the  college  afforded  it  shelter.  Thus  in  a  city  of  thirty-two 
thousand  inhabitants,  the  largest  city  in  the  country,  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  the  body  which  had  just 
completed  a  treaty  browbeating  England  and  France,  was 
ignominiously  turned  out-of-doors  by  a  handful  of  drunken 
mutineers.  The  affair  was  laughed  at  by  many,  but  sensible 
men  keenly  felt  the  disgrace,  and  asked  what  would  be 
thought  in  Europe  of  a  government  which  could  not  even 
command  the  services  of  the  police.  The  army  became 
more  unpopular  than  ever,  and  during  the  summer  and  fall 
many  town  meetings  were  held  in  New  England,  condemn 
ing  the  Commutation  Act.  Are  we  not  poor  enough  already, 
cried  the  farmers,  that  we  must  be  taxed  to  support  in  idle 
luxury  a  riotous  rabble  of  soldiery,  or  create  an  aristocracy 
of  men  with  gold  lace  and  epaulets,  who  will  presently  plot 
against  our  liberties  ?  The  Massachusetts  legislature  pro 
tested  ;  the  people  of  Connecticut  meditated  resistance.  A 
convention  was  held  at  Middletown  in  December,  at  which 
two  thirds  of  the  towns  in  the  state  were  represented,  and 
the  best  method  of  overruling  Congress  was  discussed. 
Much  high-flown  eloquence  was  wasted,  but  the  convention 
broke  up  without  deciding  upon  any  course  of  action.  The 
matter  had  become  so  serious  that  wise  men  changed  their 


1783 


THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP 


119 


minds,  and  disapproved  of  proceedings  calculated  to  throw 
Congress  into  contempt.  Samuel  Adams,  who  had  almost 
violently  opposed  the  grant  of  half-pay  and  had  been  dissat 
isfied  with  the  Commutation  Act,  now  came  completely  over 
to  the  other  side.  Whatever  might  be  thought  of  the  policy 


REAR   VIEW   OF    INDEPENDENCE    HALL 


of  the  measures,  he  said,  Congress  had  an  undoubted  right 
to  adopt  them.  The  army  had  been  necessary  for  the 
defence  of  our  liberties,  and  the  public  faith  had  been 
pledged  to  the  payment  of  the  soldiers.  States  were  as 


120  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

much  bound  as  individuals  to  fulfil  their  engagements,  and 
did  not  the  sacred  Scriptures  say  of  an  honest  man  that, 
though  he  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt,  he  changeth  not  ? 
Such  plain  truths  prevailed  in  the  Boston  town  meeting, 
which  voted  that  "  the  commutation  is  wisely  blended  with 
the  national  debt."  The  agitation  in  New  England  pre 
sently  came  to  an  end,  and  in  this  matter  the  course  of  Con 
gress  was  upheld. 

In  order  fully  to  understand  this  extravagant  distrust  of 
the  army,  we  have  to  take  into  account  another  incident  of 
the  summer  of  1783,  which  gave  rise  to  a  discussion  that 
sent  its  reverberation  all  over  the  civilized  world.  Men  of 
the  present  generation  who  in  childhood  rummaged  in  their 
grandmothers'  cosy  garrets  can  hardly  fail  to  have  come 
across  scores  of  musty  and  worm-eaten  pamphlets,  their 
yellow  pages  crowded  with  italics  and  exclamation  points, 
inveighing  in  passionate  language  against  the  wicked  and 
dangerous  society  of  the  Cincinnati.  Just  before  the  army 
was  disbanded,  the  officers,  at  the  suggestion  of  General 
Knox,  formed  themselves  into  a  society,  for  the  purpose 
of  keeping  up  their  friendly  intercourse  and  cherishing  the 
heroic  memories  of  the  struggle  in  which  they  had  taken 
part.  With  the  fondness  for  classical  analogies  which  char 
acterized  that  time,  they  likened  themselves  to  Cin- 

Order  of  J 

the  cin-  cinnatus,  who  was  taken  from  the  plough  to  lead 
an  army,  and  returned  to  his  quiet  farm  so  soon  as 
his  warlike  duties  were  over.  They  were  modern  Cincin 
nati.  A  constitution  and  by-laws  were  established  for  the 
order,  and  Washington  was  unanimously  chosen  to  be  its 
president.  Its  branches  in  the  several  states  were  to  hold 
meetings  each  Fourth  of  July,  and  there  was  to  be  a  general 
meeting  of  the  whole  society  every  year  in  the  month  of 
May.  French  officers  who  had  taken  part  in  the  war  were 
admitted  to  membership,  and  the  order  was  to  be  perpetu 
ated  by  descent  through  the  eldest  male  representatives  of 
the  families  of  the  members.  It  was  further  provided  that 
a  limited  membership  should  from  time  to  time  be  granted, 


122 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  Ill 


as  a  distinguished  honour,  to  able  and  worthy  citizens,  with 
out  regard  to  the  memories  of  the  war.  A  golden  Ameri 
can  eagle  attached  to  a  blue  ribbon  edged  with  white  was 
the  sacred  badge  of  the  order ;  and  to  this  emblem  especial 
favour  was  shown  at  the  French  court,  where  the  insignia 
of  foreign  states  were  generally,  it  is 
said,  regarded  with  jealousy.  No  po 
litical  purpose  was  to  be  subserved  by 
this  order  of  the  Cincinnati,  save  in 
so  far  as  the  members  pledged  to  one 
another  their  determination  to  pro 
mote  and  cherish  the  union  between 
the  states.  In  its  main  intent  the 
society  was  to  be  a  kind  of  masonic 
brotherhood,  charged  with  the  duty 
of  aiding  the  widows  and  the  orphan 
children  of  its  members  in  time  of 
need.  Innocent  as  all  this  was,  how 
ever,  the  news  of  the  establishment  of 
such  a  society  was  greeted  with  a  howl 
of  indignation  all  over  the  country.  It 
was  thought  that  its  founders  were  in 
spired  by  a  deep-laid  political  scheme 
for  centralizing  the  government  and 
setting  up  a  hereditary  aristocracy. 
The  press  teemed  with  invective  and 
ridicule,  and  the  feeling  thus  expressed 
by  the  penny-a-liners  was  shared  by 
able  men  accustomed  to  weigh  their 
words.  Franklin  dealt  with  it  in  a 

spirit  of  banter,  and  John  Adams  in  a  spirit  of  abhorrence ; 
while  Samuel  Adams  pointed  out  the  dangers  inherent  in  the 
principle  of  hereditary  transmission  of  honours,  and  in  the 
admission  of  foreigners  into  a  secret  association  possessed 
of  political  influence  in  America.  What !  cried  the  men  of 
Massachusetts.  Have  we  thrown  overboard  the  effete  insti 
tutions  of  Europe,  only  to  have  them  straightway  introduced 


BADGE  OF  THE  CINCINNATI 


CONS  IDERATIONS 

ON       THE 

SOCIETY    OR    ORDER 

O     F 

CINCINNATI; 

LATELY     INSTITUTED 

By  the  Major-Generals,  Brigadier-Generals,  and 
Other  Officers  of  the  AMERICAN  ARMY. 


PROVING    THAT    fT    CREATES 

A  RACE  OF  HEREDITARY  PATRICIANS, 

O    R 

NOBILITY. 

INTERSPERSED     WITH    REMARKS 

On   its    C  O   N  S  E  Q,  U  E  N  C  E  S  to  the  FREEDOM 
and  HAPPINESS   of  the   REPUBLIC. 

Addreffed    to    the     PEOPLE    of    SOUTH- 
CAROLINA,  and  their  REPRESENTATIVES. 

BY      C  A  S  S  I  U  S. 


Suppofed  to  he  written  by  ft,  DA  N  US  3LJ  R  K  E,   Efejuire, 
one  of  the  Chief  Juftices  of  the  State  ofSouth  Carolina. 


UJ  ye  the   Trumpet  in  Zion.  The   BIBLE. 


PHILADELPHIA 

Printed  and   Sold    by  ROBERT    BELL,  in  Tmrd-Stresf. 

Price,   onf'fixth    of  a.   Dollar.      M,DCC,LXXXIII 


124  THE  CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

among  us  again,  after  this  plausible  and  surreptitious  fashion? 
At  Cambridge  it  was  thought  that  the  general  sentiment  of 
the  university  was  in  favour  of  suppressing  the  order  by  act 
of  legislature.  One  of  the  members,  who  was  a  candidate  for 
senator  in  the  spring  of  1784,  found  it  necessary  to  resign 
in  order  to  save  his  chances  for  election.  Rhode  Island  pro 
posed  to  disfranchise  such  of  her  citizens  as  belonged  to  the 
order,  albeit  her  most  eminent  citizen,  Nathanael  Greene, 
was  one  of  them.  ^Edanus  Burke,  a  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  South  Carolina,  wrote  a  violent  pamphlet  against 
the  society  of  the  Cincinnati  under  the  pseudonym  of  Cas- 
sius,  the  slayer  of  tyrants  ;  and  this  diatribe,  translated  and 
amplified  by  Mirabeau,  awakened  dull  echoes  among  readers 
of  Rousseau  and  haters  of  privilege  in  all  parts  of  Europe. 
A  swarm  of  brochures  in  rejoinder  and  rebutter  issued  from 
the  press,  and  the  nineteenth  century  had  come  in  before 
the  controversy  was  quite  forgotten. 

It  is  easy  for  us  now  to  smile  at  this  outcry  against  the 
Cincinnati  as  much  ado  about  nothing,  seeing  as  we  do  that 
in  the  absence  of  territorial  jurisdiction  or  especial  political 
privileges  an  order  of  nobility  cannot  be  created  by  the  mere 
inheritance  of  empty  titles  or  badges.  For  example,  since 
the  great  revolution  which  swept  away  the  landlordship  and 
fiscal  exemptions  of  the  French  nobility,  a  marquisate  or  a 
dukedom  in  France  is  of  scarcely  more  political  importance 
than  a  doctorate  of  laws  in  a  New  England  university. 
Men  were  nevertheless  not  to  be  blamed  in  1783  for  their 
hostility  toward  that  ghost  of  the  hereditary  principle  which 
the  Cincinnati  sought  to  introduce.  In  a  free  industrial 
society  like  that  of  America  it  had  no  proper  place  or  mean 
ing  ;  and  the  attempt  to  set  up  such  a  form  might  well  have 
been  cited  in  illustration  of  the  partial  reversion  toward 
militancy  which  eight  years  of  warfare  had  effected.  The 
absurdity  of  the  situation  was  quickly  realized  by  Washing 
ton,  and  he  prevailed  upon  the  society,  in  its  first  annual 
meeting  of  May,  1784,  to  abandon  the  principle  of  hereditary 
membership.  The  agitation  was  thus  allayed,  and  in  the 


1783  THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP  125 

presence  of  graver  questions  the  much-dreaded  brotherhood 
gradually  ceased  to  occupy  popular  attention. 

The  opposition  to  the  Cincinnati  is  not  fully  explained 
unless  we  consider  it  in  connection  with  Nicola's  letter,  the 
Newburgh  address,  and  the  flight  of  Congress  to  Princeton. 
The  members  of  the  Cincinnati  were  pledged  to  do  whatever 
they  could  to  promote  the  union  between  the  states  ;  the 
object  of  the  Newburgh  address  was  to  enlist  the  army  in 
behalf  of  the  public  creditors,  and  in  some  vaguely-imagined 
fashion  to  force  a  stronger  government  upon  the  country  ; 
the  letter  of  Nicola  shows  that  at  least  some  of  the  officers 
had  harboured  the  notion  of  a  monarchy  ;  and  the  weakness 
of  Congress  had  been  revealed  in  the  most  startling  manner 
by  its  flight  before  a  squad  of  mutineers.  It  is  one  of  the 
lessons  of  history  that,  in  the  virtual  absence  of  a  central 
government  for  which  a  need  is  felt,  the  want  is  apt  to  be 
supplied  by  the  strongest  organization  in  the  country,  what 
ever  that  may  happen  to  be.  It  was  in  this  way  that  the 
French  army,  a  few  years  later,  got  control  of  the  govern 
ment  of  France  and  made  its  general  emperor.  In  1783,  if 
the  impotence  of  Congress  were  to  be  as  explicitly  acknow 
ledged  as  it  was  implicitly  felt,  the  only  national  organization 
left  in  the  country  was  the  army,  and  when  this  was  dis 
banded  it  seemed  nevertheless  to  prolong  its  life  under  a 
new  and  dangerous  form  in  the  brotherhood  of  the  Cincin 
nati.  The  cession  of  western  lands  to  the  confederacy  was, 
moreover,  completed  at  about  this  time,  and  one  of  the  uses 
to  which  the  new  territory  was  to  be  put  was  the  payment 
of  claims  due  to  the  soldiers.  It  was  distinctly  feared,  as  is 
shown  in  a  letter  from  Samuel  Adams  to  Elbridge  Gerry, 
that  the  members  of  the  Cincinnati  would  acquire  large 
tracts  of  western  land  under  this  arrangement,  and,  import 
ing  peasants  from  Germany,  would  grant  farms  to  them  on 
terms  of  military  service  and  fealty,  thus  introducing  into 
America  a  kind  of  feudal  system.  In  order  to  forestall 
any  such  movement,  it  was  provided  by  Congress  that  in 
any  new  states  formed  out  of  the  western  territory  no 


126  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  m 

person  holding  a  hereditary  title  should  be  admitted  to  citi 
zenship. 

From  the  weakness  of  Congress  as  illustrated  in  its 
inability  to  raise  money  to  pay  the  public  debt  and  meet  the 
current  expenses  of  .government,  and  from  the  popular  dread 
of  military  usurpation  which  went  along  with  the  uneasy 
consciousness  of  that  weakness,  we  have  now  to  turn  to 
another  group  of  affairs  in  which  the  same  point  is  still 
further  illustrated  and  emphasized.  We  have  seen  how  the 
commissioners  of  the  United  States  in  Paris  had  succeeded 
in  making  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain  on  extremely 
favourable  terms.  So  unpopular  was  the  treaty  in  England, 
on  account  of  the  great  concessions  made  to  the  Americans, 
that,  as  we  have  seen,  the  fall  of  Lord  Shelburne's  ministry 
Congress  was  occasioned  thereby.  As  an  offset  to  these 
unabiet?  n'^era^  concessions,  of  which  the  most  considerable 
carry  out  was  the  acknowledgment  of  the  American  claim 

the  provi 
sions  of        to    the    northwestern     territory,    our    confederate 

'aty  government  was  pledged  to  do  all  in  its  power  to 
effect  certain  concessions  which  were  demanded  by  England. 
That  the  American  loyalists,  whose  property  had  been  con 
fiscated  by  various  state  governments,  should  be  indemni 
fied  for  their  losses  was  a  claim  which,  whatever  Americans 
might  think  of  it,  England  felt  bound  in  honour  to  urge. 
That  private  debts,  due  from  American  to  British  creditors, 
should  be  faithfully  discharged  was  the  plainest  dictate  of 
common  honesty.  Congress,  as  we  have  seen,  was  bound 
by  the  treaty  to  recommend  to  the  several  states  to  desist 
from  the  persecution  of  Tories,  and  to  give  them  an 
opportunity  of  recovering  their  estates  ;  and  it  had  been 
further  agreed  that  all  private  debts  should  be  discharged  at 
their  full  value  in  sterling  money.  It  now  turned  out  that 
Congress  was  powerless  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the 
treaty  upon  either  of  these  points.  The  recommendations 
concerning  the  Tories  were  greeted  with  a  storm  of  popular 
indignation.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  war  these  unfortu 
nate  persons  had  been  treated  with  severity  both  by  the 


1783 


THE    LEAGUE    OF   FRIENDSHIP 


129 


gallant  friends  penned  up  to  die  of  wanton  ill-usage  in  foul 
ships'  holds  in  the  harbour.  When  at  last  the  king's  troops 
left  the  city,  it  was  felt  that  a  great  day  of  reckoning  had 
arrived.  In  September,  1783,  two  months  before  the  evacu 
ation,  more  than  twelve  thousand  men,  women,  and  children 
embarked  for  the  Bahamas  or  for  Nova  Scotia,  rather  than 
stay  and  face  the  troubles  that  were  coming.  Many  of  these 
were  refined  and  cultivated  persons,  and  not  all  had  been 
actively  hostile  to  the  American  cause ;  many  had  simply 
accepted  British  protection.  Against  those  who  remained 


STONE    BRIDGE    WHERE    BROADWAY    NOW    CROSSES   CANAL   STREET 

in  the  city  the  returning  Whigs  now  proceeded  with  great 
severity.  The  violent  party  was  dominant  in  the  legislature, 
and  George  Clinton,  the  governor,  put  himself  conspicuously 
at  its  head.  A  bill  was  passed  disfranchising  all  such  per 
sons  as  had  voluntarily  stayed  in  neighbourhoods  occupied 
by  the  British  troops  ;  their  offence  was  called  misprision  of 
treason.  But  the  council  vetoed  this  bill  as  too  wholesale 
in  its  operation,  for  it  would  have  left  some  districts  without 
voters  enough  to  hold  an  election.  An  "iron-clad  oath" 
was  adopted  instead,  and  no  one  was  allowed  to  vote  unless 
he  could  swear  that  he  had  never  in  anywise  abetted  the 
enemy.  It  was  voted  that  no  Tory  who  had  left  the  state 


130  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  m 

should  be  permitted  to  return ;  and  a  bill  was  passed  known 
The  Ties-  as  the  Trespass  Act,  whereby  all  persons  who  had 
Sew  York*  (lu^t  their  homes  by  reason  of  the  enemy's  pres- 
J7§4  ence  might  recover  damages  in  an  action  of  tres 

pass  against  such  persons  as  had  since  taken  possession  of 
the  premises.  Defendants  in  such  cases  were  expressly 
barred  from  pleading  a  military  order  in  justification  of  their 
possession.  As  there  was  scarcely  a  building  on  the  island 
of  New  York  that  had  not  thus  changed  hands  during  the 
British  occupation,  it  was  easy  to  foresee  what  confusion 
must  ensue.  Everybody  whose  house  had  once  been,  for 
ever  so  few  days,  in  the  hands  of  a  Tory  now  rushed  into 
court  with  his  action  of  trespass.  Damages  were  rated  at 
most  exorbitant  figures,  and  it  became  clear  that  the  mis 
deeds  of  the  enemy  were  about  to  be  made  the  excuse  for 
a  carnival  of  spoliation,  when  all  at  once  the  test  case  of 
Rutgers  v.  Waddington  brought  upon  the  scene  a  sturdy 
defender  of  order,  an  advocate  who  was  soon  to  become  one 
of  the  foremost  personages  in  American  history. 

Of  all  the  young  men  of  that  day,  save  perhaps  William 
Pitt,  the  most  precocious  was  Alexander  Hamilton.  He 
had  already  given  promise  of  a  great  career  before  the 
Alexander  breaking  out  of  the  war.  He  was  born  on  the 
Hamilton  island  of  NeviSj  in  the  West  Indies,  in  1757.  His 

father  belonged  to  that  famous  Scottish  clan  from  which 
have  come  one  of  the  most  learned  metaphysicians  and  one 
of  the  most  original  mathematicians  of  modern  times.  His 
mother  was  a  French  lady,  of  Huguenot  descent,  and  bio 
graphers  have  been  fond  of  tracing  in  his  character  the 
various  qualities  of  his  parents.  To  the  shrewdness  and  per 
sistence,  the  administrative  ability,  and  the  taste  for  abstract 
reasoning  which  we  are  wont  to  find  associated  in  the  highest 
type  of  Scottish  mind  he  joined  a  truly  French  vivacity  and 
grace.  His  earnestness,  sincerity,  and  moral  courage  were 
characteristic  alike  of  Puritan  and  of  Huguenot.  In  the 
course  of  his  short  life  he  exhibited  a  remarkable  many- 
sidedness.  So  great -was  his  genius  for  organization  that  in 


1783 


THE    LEAGUE    OF   FRIENDSHIP 


'^ssfssia^- 
«_.     j    >™)fc«<  rm 


LISPENARD'S  MEADOWS  FROM  SITE  OF  BROADWAY  AND  BROOME  STREET 

many  essential  respects  the  American  government  is  moving 
to-day  along  the  lines  which  he  was  the  first  to  mark  out. 
As  an  economist  he  shared  to  some  extent  in  the  short 
comings  of  the  age  which  preceded  Adam  Smith,  but  in  the 
special  department  of  finance  he  has  been  equalled  by  no 
other  American  statesman  save  Albert  Gallatin.  He  was  a 
convincing  orator  and  brilliant  writer,  an  excellent  lawyer, 
and  a  clear-headed  and  industrious  student  of  political  his 
tory.  He  was  also  eminent  as  a  political  leader,  although  he 
lacked  faith  in  democratic  government,  and  a  generous  impa 
tience  of  temperament  sometimes  led  him  to  prefer  short  and 
arbitrary  by-paths  toward  desirable  ends,  which  can  never 
be  securely  reached  save  along  the  broad  but  steep  and 
arduous  road  of  popular  conviction.  But  with  all  Hamilton's 
splendid  qualities,  nothing  about  him  is  more  remarkable 
than  the  early  age  at  which  these  were  developed.  At  the 
age  of  fifteen  an  able  newspaper  article  brought  him  into 
such  repute  in  the  little  island  of  Nevis  that  he  was  sent  to 
New  York  to  avail  himself  of  the  best  advantages  afforded 
by  the  King's  College,  now  known  as  Columbia.  He  had  at 
first  no  definite  intention  of  becoming  an  American  citizen, 
but  the  thrilling  events  of  the  time  appealed  strongly  to  the 
earnest  heart  and  powerful  intelligence  of  this  wonderful 


132 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 


boy.  At  a  gathering  of  the  people  of  New  York  in  July, 
1774,  his  generous  blood  warmed,  till  a  resistless  impulse 
brought  him  on  his  feet  to  speak  to  the  assembled  multitude. 
It  was  no  company  of  half-drunken  idlers  that  thronged 
about  him,  but  an  assemblage  of  grave  and  responsible  citi 
zens,  who  looked  with  some  astonishment  upon  this  boy 
of  seventeen  years,  short  and  slight  in  stature,  yet  erect 
and  Caesar-like  in  bearing,  with  firm  set  mouth  and  great, 
dark,  earnest  eyes.  His  strong  and  clean-cut  speech,  full  of 
sense  and  without  a  syllable  of  bombast,  held  his  hearers 
entranced,  and  from  that  day  Alexander  Hamilton  was  a 
marked  man.  He  began  publishing  anonymous  pamphlets, 
which  at  first  were  attributed  by  some  to  Jay,  and  by  others 
to  Livingston.  When  their  authorship  was  discovered,  the 
loyalist  party  tried  in  vain  to  buy  off  the  formidable  youth. 
He  kept  up  the  pamphlet  war,  in  the  course  of  which  he  woe 
fully  defeated  Dr.  Cooper,  the  Tory  president  of  the  college  ; 
but  shortly  afterward  he  defended  the  doctor's  house  against 
an  angry  mob,  until  that  unpopular  gentleman  had  succeeded 
in  making  his  escape  to  a  British  ship.  Hamilton  served  in 
the  army  throughout  the  war,  for  the  most  part  as  aid  and 
secretary  to  Washington ;  but  in  1781  he  was  a  colonel  in 
the  line,  and  stormed  a  redoubt  at  Yorktown  with  distin 
guished  skill  and  bravery.  He  married  a  daughter  of  Philip 
Schuyler,  began  the  practice  of  law,  and  in  1782,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-five,  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  Congress. 

In  1784,  when  the  Trespass  Act  threw  New  York  into 
confusion,  Hamilton  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  powerful  advocates  in  the  country.  In  the  test  case 
which  now  came  before  the  courts  he  played  a  bold  and 
manly  part.  Elizabeth  Rutgers  was  a  widow,  who  had  fled 
from  New  York  after  its  capture  by  General  Howe.  Her 
The  case  of  confiscated  estate  had  passed  into  the  hands  of 
Wadding^'  Joshua  Waddington,  a  rich  Tory  merchant,  and 
ton  she  now  brought  suit  under  the  Trespass  Act  for 

its  recovery.  It  was  a  case  in  which  popular  sympathy  was 
naturally  and  strongly  enlisted  in  behalf  of  the  poor  widow. 


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON 


i34  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

That  she  should  have  been  turned  out  of  house  and  home 
was  one  of  the  many  gross  instances  of  wickedness  wrought 
by  the  war.  On  the  other  hand,  the  disturbance  wrought 
by  the  enforcement  of  the  Trespass  Act  was  already  creat 
ing  fresh  wrongs  much  faster  than  it  was  righting  old  ones  ; 
and  it  is  for  such  reasons  as  this  that  both  in  the  common 
law  and  in  the  law  of  nations  the  principle  has  been  firmly 
established  that  "the  fruits  of  immovables  belong  to  the 
captor  'as  long  as  he  remains  in  actual  possession  of  them." 
The  Trespass  Act  contravened  this  principle,  and  it  also 
contravened  the  treaty.  It  moreover  placed  the  state  of 
New  York  in  an  attitude  of  defiance  toward  Congress, 
which  had  made  the  treaty  and  expressly  urged  upon  the 
states  to  suspend  their  legislation  against  the  Tories.  On 
large  grounds  of  public  policy,  therefore,  the  Trespass  Act 
deserved  to  be  set  aside  by  the  courts,  and  when  Hamilton 
was  asked  to  serve  as  counsel  for  the  defendant  he  accepted 
the  odious  task  without  hesitation.  There  can  be  no  better 
proof  of  his  forensic  ability  than  his  winning  a  verdict,  in 
such  a  case  as  this,  from  a  hostile  court  that  was  largely 
influenced  by  the  popular  excitement.  The  decision  nulli 
fied  the  Trespass  Act,  and  forthwith  mass  meetings  of  the 
people  and  an  extra  session  of  the  legislature  condemned 
this  action  of  the  court.  Hamilton  was  roundly  abused,  and 
his  conduct  was  attributed  to  unworthy  motives.  But  he 
faced  the  people  as  boldly  as  he  had  faced  the  court,  and 
published  a  letter,  under  the  signature  of  Phocion,  setting 
forth  in  the  clearest  light  the  injustice  and  impolicy  of 
extreme  measures  against  the  Tories.  The  popular  wrath 
and  disgust  at  Hamilton's  course  found  expression  in  a  • 
letter  from  one  Isaac  Ledyard,  a  hot-headed  pot-house  poli 
tician,  who  signed  himself  Mentor.  A  war  of  pamphlets 
ensued  between  Mentor  and  Phocion.  It  was  genius  pitted 
against  dulness,  reason  against  passion  ;  and  reason  wielded 
by  genius  won  the  day.  The  more  intelligent  and  respect 
able  citizens  reluctantly  admitted  that  Hamilton's  arguments 
were  unanswerable.  A  club  of  boon  companions,  to  which 


1784  THE    LEAGUE    OF    FRIENDSHIP  135 

Ledyard  belonged,  made  the  same  admission  by  the  peculiar 
manner  in  which  it  undertook  to  silence  him.  It  was  gravely 
proposed  that  the  members  of  the  club  should  pledge  them 
selves  one  after  another  to  challenge  Hamilton  to  mortal 
combat,  until  some  one  of  them  should  have  the  good 
fortune  to  kill  him !  The  scheme  met  with  general  favour, 
but  was  defeated  by  the  exertions  of  Ledyard  himself,  whose 
zeal  was  not  ardent  enough  to  condone  treachery  and  mur 
der.  The  incident  well  illustrates  the  intense  bitterness  of 
political  passion  at  the  time,  as  Hamilton's  conduct  shows 
him  in  the  light  of  a  courageous  and  powerful  defender  of 
the  central  government.  For  nothing  was  more  significant 
in  the  verdict  which  he  had  obtained  than  its  implicit  asser 
tion  of  the  rights  of  the  United  States  as  against  the  legis 
lature  of  a  single  state. 

In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  such  men  as  Hamilton,  life  was 
made  very  uncomfortable  for  the  Tories.  In  some  states 
they  were  subjected  to  mob  violence.  Instances  of  tarring 
and  feathering  were  not  uncommon.  The  legislature  of 
South  Carolina  was  honourably  distinguished  for  the  good 
faith  with  which  it  endeavoured  to  enforce  the  recommen 
dation  of  Congress  ;  but  the  people,  unable  to  forget  the 
smoking  ruins  of  plundered  homes,  were  less  lenient. 
Notices  were  posted  ordering  prominent  loyalists  to  leave 
the  country ;  the  newspapers  teemed  with  savage  warnings  ; 
and  finally,  of  those  who  tarried  beyond  a  certain  time, 
many  were  shot  or  hanged  to  trees.  This  extremity  of 
bitterness,  however,  did  not  long  continue.  The  instances 
of  physical  violence  were  mostly  confined  to  the  first  two  or 
three  years  after  the  close  of  the  war.  In  most  of  the  states 
the  confiscating  acts  were  after  a  while  repealed,  and  many 
of  the  loyalists  were  restored  to  their  estates.  Emigration 
But  the  emigration  which  took  place  between  1783  of  Tories 
and  1785  was  very  large.  It  has  been  estimated  that 
100,000  persons,  or  nearly  three  per  cent,  of  the  total  white 
population,  quit  the  country.  Those  from  the  southern 
states  went  mostly  to  the  Bahamas  and  Florida  ;  while  those 


136  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  m 

from  the  north  laid  the  foundation  of  new  British  states  in 
New  Brunswick  and  Upper  Canada.  Many  of  these  refugees 
appealed  to  the  British  government  for  indemnification  for 
their  losses,  and  their  claims  received  prompt  attention.  A 
parliamentary  commission  was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the 
matter,  and  by  the  year  1790  some  $16,000,000  had  been 
distributed  among  about  4,000  sufferers,  while  many  others 
received  grants  of  crown-lands,  or  half-pay  as  military  offi 
cers,  or  special  annuities,  or  appointments  in  the  civil  ser 
vice.  On  the  whole,  the  compensation  which  the  refugees 
received  from  Parliament  seems  to  have  been  much  more 
ample  than  that  which  the  ragged  soldiers  of  our  Revolu 
tionary  army  ever  received  from  Congress. 

While  the  political  passions  resulting  in  this  forced 
emigration  of  loyalists  were  such  as  naturally  arise  in  the 
course  of  a  civil  war,  the  historian  cannot  but  regret  that 
the  United  States  should  have  been  deprived  of  the  services 
of  so  many  excellent  citizens.  In  nearly  all  such  cases  of 
wholesale  popular  vengeance,  it  is  the  wrong  individuals  who 
suffer.  We  could  well  afford  to  dispense  with  the  border 
ruffians  who  abetted  the  Indians  in  their  carnival  of  burning 
and  scalping,  but  the  refugees  of  1784  were  for  the  most 
part  peaceful  and  unoffending  families,  above  the  average  in 
education  and  refinement.  The  vicarious  suffering  inflicted 
upon  them  set  nothing  right,  but  simply  increased  the  mass 
of  wrong,  while  to  the  general  interests  of  the  country  the 
loss  of  such  people  was  in  every  way  damaging.  The 
immediate  political  detriment  wrought  at  the  time,  though 
it  is  that  which  most  nearly  concerns  this  moment  of  our 
story,  was  probably  the  least  important.  Since  Congress 
was  manifestly  unable  to  carry  out  the  treaty,  an  excuse  was 
furnished  to  England  for  declining  to  fulfil  some  of  its  pro 
visions.  In  regard  to  the  loyalists,  indeed,  the  treaty  had 
recognized  that  Congress  possessed  but  an  advisory  power  ; 
but  in  the  other  provision  concerning  the  payment  of  private 
debts,  which  in  the  popular  mind  was  very  much  mixed  up 
with  the  question  of  justice  to  the  loyalists,  the  faith  of  the 


1784  THE   LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP  137 

United  States  was  distinctly  pledged.     On  this  point,  also, 
Congress  was  powerless  to  enforce  the  treaty.     Massachu 
setts,    New   York,    Pennsylvania,   Maryland,    Virginia,    and 
South  Carolina  had  all  enacted   laws    obstructing   Congress 
the  collection  of  British  debts  :  and  in  flat  defiance   is  unrable 

to  entorce 

of   the   treaty   these    statutes    remained    in  force   payment 
until  after  the  downfall  of  the  Confederation.     The   British3  *' 
states  were   aware  that    such  conduct  needed  an   Engiln^' 
excuse,    and   one   was    soon   forthcoming.     Many   retaliates 
negroes    had    left   the   country   with   the   British    to  sun-en- 
fleet  :    some  doubtless  had  sought  their  freedom ;   western 
others,  perhaps,  had  been  kidnapped  as  booty,  and    pos 
sold  to  planters  in  the  West  Indies.     The  number  of  these 
black  men  carried  away  by  the  fleet   had  been  magnified 
tenfold  by  popular  rumour.     Complaints  had  been  made  to 
Sir  Guy  Carleton,  but  he  had  replied  that  any  negro  who 
came   within  his  lines  was    presumably  a  freeman,  and  he 
could  not  lend  his  aid  in  remanding  such  persons  to  slavery. 
Jay,   as    one   of   the   treaty  commissioners,  gave  it    as  his 
opinion  that  Carleton  was  quite  right  in  this,  but  he  thought 
that  where  a  loss  of  slaves  could  be  proved,  Great  Britain 
was  bound  to  make  pecuniary  compensation  to  the  owners. 
The  matter  was  wrangled  over  for  years  in  the  state  legis 
latures,  in  town  and  county  meetings,  at  dinner-tables,  and 
in  taverns,  with  the  general  result  that,  until  such  compen 
sation  should  be  made,  the  statutes  hindering  the  collection 
of  debts  would   not    be   repealed.     In    retaliation  for   this, 
Great  Britain  refused  to  withdraw  her  garrisons  from  the 
northwestern  fortresses,1  which  the  treaty  had  surrendered 
to  the  United  States.     This  measure  was  very  keenly  felt 
by  the  people.     As  an  assertion  of  superior  strength,  it  was 
peculiarly  galling  to  our  weak  and  divided  confederacy,  and 
it  also  wrought  us  direct   practical   injury.     It  encouraged 
the  Indian  tribes  in  their  depredations  on  the  frontier,  and 
it  deprived  American  merchants  of  a  lucrative  trade  in  furs. 

1  These  were  Ogdensburgh,  Oswego,  Niagara,  Detroit,  and  Macki 
naw,  with  a  few  others  of  less  importance. 


138  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  in 

In  the  spring  of  1787  there  were  advertised  for  sale  in  Lon 
don  more  than  360,000  skins,  worth  $1,200,000  at  the  lowest 
estimate ;  and  had  the  posts  been  surrendered  according  to 
the  treaty,  all  this  would  probably  have  passed  through 
the  hands  of  American  merchants.  The  London  fur  traders 
were  naturally  unwilling  to  lose  their  control  over  this  busi 
ness,  and  in  the  language  of  modern  politics  they  brought 
"  pressure  "  to  bear  on  government  to  retain  the  fortresses 
as  long  as  possible.  The  American  refusal  to  pay  British 
creditors  furnished  a  plausible  excuse,  while  the  weakness 
of  Congress  made  any  kind  of  reprisal  impossible ;  and  it 
was  not  until  Washington's  second  term  as  president,  after 
our  national  credit  had  been  restored  and  the  strength  of 
our  new  government  made  manifest,  that  Great  Britain  sur 
rendered  this  chain  of  strongholds  commanding  the  woods 
and  waters  of  our  northwestern  frontier. 


CHAPTER   IV 

DRIFTING    TOWARD    ANARCHY 

AT  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  barbarous 
superstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages  concerning  trade  between 
nations  still  flourished  with  scarcely  diminished  vitality. 
The  epoch-making  work  of  Adam  Smith  had  been  published 
in  the  same  year  in  which  the  United  States  declared  their 
independence.  The  one  was  the  great  scientific  event,  as 
the  other  was  the  great  political  event  of  the  age ;  but  of 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  were  the  scope  and  purport 
fathomed  at  the  time.  Among  the  foremost  statesmen, 
those  who,  like  Shelburne  and  Gallatin,  understood  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  "  Wealth  of  Nations  "  were  few  indeed.  The 
simple  principle  that  when  two  parties  trade  both  Barbarous 
must  be  gainers,  or  one  would  soon  stop  trading,  tianslbout 
was  generally  lost  sight  of  ;  and  most  commercial  trade 
legislation  proceeded  upon  the  theory  that  in  trade,  as  in 
gambling  or  betting,  what  the  one  party  gains  the  other 
must  lose.  Hence  towns,  districts,  and  nations  surrounded 
themselves  with  walls  of  legislative  restrictions  intended  to 
keep  out  the  monster  Trade,  or  to  admit  him  only  on  strict 
est  proof  that  he  could  do  no  harm.  On  this  barbarous 
theory,  the  use  of  a  colony  consisted  in  its  being  a  customer 
which  you  could  compel  to  trade  with  yourself,  while  you 
could  prevent  it  from  trading  with  anybody  else  ;  and  having 
secured  this  point,  you  could  cunningly  arrange  things  by 
legislation  so  as  to  throw  all  the  loss  upon  this  enforced 
customer,  and  keep  all  the  gain  to  yourself.  In  the  seven 
teenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  all  the  commercial  legisla 
tion  of  the  great  colonizing  states  was  based  upon  this  theory 
of  the  use  of  a  colony.  For  effectiveness,  it  shared  to  some 


140  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

extent  the  characteristic  features  of  legislation  for  making 
water  run  up  hill.  It  retarded  commercial  development  all 
over  the  world,  fostered  monopolies,  made  the  rich  richer 
and  the  poor  poorer,  hindered  the  interchange  of  ideas  and 
the  refinement  of  manners,  and  sacrificed  millions  of  human 
lives  in  misdirected  warfare  ;  but  what  it  was  intended  to  do 
it  did  not  do.  The  sturdy  race  of  smugglers  —  those  de 
spised  pioneers  of  a  higher  civilization  —  thrived  in  defiance 
of  kings  and  parliaments  ;  and  as  it  was  impossible  to  carry 
out  such  legislation  thoroughly  without  stopping  trade  alto 
gether,  colonies  and  mother  countries  contrived  to  increase 
their  wealth  in  spite  of  it.  The  colonies,  however,  under 
stood  the  animus  of  the  theory  in  so  far  as  it  was  directed 
against  them,  and  the  revolutionary  sentiment  in  America 
had  gained  much  of  its  strength  from  the  protest  against 
this  one-sided  justice.  In  one  of  its  most  important  aspects, 
the  Revolution  was  a  deadly  blow  aimed  at  the  old  system  of 
trade  restrictions.  It  was  to  a  certain  extent  a  step  in  real 
ization  of  the  noble  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith.  But  where 
the  scientific  thinker  grasped  the  whole  principle  involved 
in  the  matter,  the  practical  statesmen  saw  only  the  special 
application  which  seemed  to  concern  them  for  the  moment. 
They  all  understood  that  the  Revolution  had  set  them  free 
to  trade  with  other  countries  than  England,  but  very  few  of 
them  understood  that,  whatever  countries  trade  together,  the 
one  cannot  hope  to  benefit  by  impoverishing  the  other. 

This  point  is  much  better  understood  in  England  to-day 
than  in  the  United  States  ;  but  a  century  ago  there  was 
little  to  choose  between  the  two  countries  in  ignorance  of 
political  economy.  England  had  gained  great  wealth  and 
power  through  trade  with  her  rapidly  growing  American 
colonies.  One  of  her  chief  fears,  in  the  event  of  American 
independence,  had  been  the  possible  loss  of  that  trade. 
English  merchants  feared  that  American  commerce,  when 
no  longer  confined  to  its  old  paths  by  legislation,  would 
somehow  find  its  way  to  France  and  Holland  and  Spain  and 
other  countries,  until  nothing  would  be  left  for  England. 


1783  DRIFTING   TOWARD   ANARCHY  141 

The  Revolution  worked  no  such  change,  however.  The 
principal  trade  of  the  United  States  was  with  England,  as 
before,  because  England  could  best  supply  the  goods  that 
Americans  wanted  ;  and  it  is  such  considerations,  and  not 
acts  of  Parliament,  that  determine  trade  in  its  natural  and 
proper  channels.  In  1783  Pitt  introduced  into  Parliament 
a  bill  which  would  have  secured  mutual  unconditional  free 
trade  between  the  two  countries ;  and  this  was  what  such 
men  as  Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Madison  desired.  Could 
this  bill  have  passed,  the  hard  feelings  occasioned  by  the  war 
would  soon  have  died  out,  the  commercial  progress  of  both 
countries  would  have  been  promoted,  and  the  stupid  mea 
sures  which  led  to  a  second  war  within  thirty  years  might 


TICKET  entitles  the  Bearer  to  receive  3J 
L  Prize  as  maybe  drawn  a^in&i£*.Nuni<»  £ 
according  to  a  Refolution  of  CONGRESS/ §: 


FACSIMILE    OF   A    CONTINENTAL    LOTTERY    TICKET 

have  been  prevented.  But  the  wisdom  of  Pitt  found  less 
favour  in  Parliament  than  the  dense  stupidity  of  Lord  Shef 
field,  who  thought  that  to  admit  Americans  to  the  carrying 
trade  would  undermine  the  naval  power  of  Great  Britain. 
Pitt's  measure  was  defeated,  and  the  regulation  of  commerce 
with  America  was  left  to  the  king  in  council.  Orders  were 
forthwith  passed  as  if  upon  the  theory  that  America  poor 
would  be  a  better  customer  than  America  rich. 

The  carrying  trade  to  the  West  Indies  had  been  one  of 
the  most  important  branches  of  American  industry.  The 
men  of  New  England  were  famous  for  seamanship,  and 
better  and  cheaper  ships  could  be  built  in  the  seaports  of 


I42  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

Massachusetts  than  anywhere  in   Great   Britain.     An  oak 
vessel  could  be  built  at  Gloucester  or  Salem  for 

Shipbuild- 

ing  in  New  twenty-four  dollars  per  ton  ;  a  ship  of  live-oak  or 
American  cedar  cost  not  more  than  thirty-eight 
dollars  per  ton.  On  the  other  hand,  fir  vessels  built  on  the 
Baltic  cost  thirty-five  dollars  per  ton,  and  nowhere  in  Eng 
land,  France,  or  Holland  could  a  ship  be  made  of  oak  for 
less  than  fifty  dollars  per  ton.  Often  the  cost  was  as  high 
as  sixty  dollars.  It  was  not  strange,  therefore,  that  before 
the  war  more  than  one  third  of  the  tonnage  afloat  under  the 
British  flag  was  launched  from  American  dock-yards.  The 
war  had  violently  deprived  England  of  this  enormous  advan 
tage,  and  now  she  sought  to  make  the  privation  perpetual,  in 
the  delusive  hope  of  confining  British  trade  to  British  keels, 
and  in  the  belief  that  it  was  the  height  of  wisdom  to  impov 
erish  the  nation  which  she  regarded  as  her  best  customer. 
In  July,  1783,  an  order  in  council  proclaimed  that  hence 
forth  all  trade  between  the  United  States  and  the  British 
West  Indies  must  be  carried  on  in  British-built  ships,  owned 
and  navigated  by  British  subjects.  A  serious  blow  was  thus 
dealt  not  only  at  American  shipping,  but  also  at  the  inter 
change  of  commodities  between  the  states  and  the  islands, 
which  was  greatly  hampered  by  this  restriction.  During  the 
British  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  West  India 
actsfnd°n  sugar  trade  with  the  North  American  colonies  and 
orders  in  with  Great  Britain  had  been  of  immense  value  to  all 
directed  parties,  and  all  had  been  seriously  damaged  by  the 
African  curtailment  of  it  due  to  the  war.  Now  that  the 
commerce  artificial  state  of  things  created  by  the  war  was  to 
be  perpetuated  by  legislation,  the  prospect  of  repairing  the 
loss  seemed  indefinitely  postponed.  Moreover,  even  in  trad 
ing  directly  with  Great  Britain,  American  ships  were  only 
allowed  to  bring  in  articles  produced  in  the  particular  states 
of  which  their  owners  were  citizens,  —  an  enactment  which 
seemed  to  add  insult  to  injury,  inasmuch  as  it  directed  espe 
cial  attention  to  the  want  of  union  among  the  thirteen 
states.  Great  indignation  was  aroused  in  America,  and  re- 


1 785 


DRIFTING    TOWARD    ANARCHY 


143 


INDEPENDENCE   HALL   AND   NEW   THEATRE,   PHILADELPHIA,    1785 

prisals  were  talked  of,  but  efforts  were  first  made  to  obtain 
a  commercial  treaty. 

In  1785  Franklin  returned  from  France,  and  Jefferson 
was  sent  as  minister  in  his  stead,  while  John  Adams  became 
the  first  representative  of  the  United  States  at  the  British 
court.  Adams  was  at  first  very  courteously  received  by 
George  III.,  and  presently  set  to  work  to  convince  Lord 
Carmarthen,  the  foreign  secretary,  of  the  desirableness  of 
unrestricted  intercourse  between  the  two  countries.  But 
popular  opinion  in  England  was  obstinately  set 
against  him.  But  for  the  Navigation  Act  and  the  Adams 
orders  in  council,  it  was  said,  all  ships  would  by  ^negotiate 
and  by  come  to  be  built  in  America,  and  every 
time  a  frigate  was  wanted  for  the  navy  the  Lords 
of  Admiralty  would  have  to  send  over  to  Boston  or  Phila 
delphia  and  order  one.  Rather  than  do  such  a  thing  as 
this,  it  was  thought  that  the  British  navy  should  content 
itself  with  vessels  of  inferior  workmanship  and  higher  cost, 


144  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

built  in  British  dock-yards.  Thirty  years  after,  England 
gathered  an  unexpected  fruit  of  this  narrow  policy,  when, 
to  her  intense  bewilderment,  she  saw  frigate  after  frigate 
outsailed  and  defeated  in  single  combat  with  American  an 
tagonists.  Owing  to  her  exclusive  measures,  the  rapid 
improvement  in  American  shipbuilding  had  gone  on  quite 
beyond  her  ken,  until  she  was  thus  rudely  awakened  to  it. 
With  similar  short-sighted  jealousy,  it  was  argued  that  the 
American  share  in  the  whale-fishery  and  in  the  Newfound 
land  fishery  should  be  curtailed  as  much  as  possible.  Sper 
maceti  oil  was  much  needed  in  England  :  complaints  were 
rife  of  robbery  and  murder  in  the  dimly  lighted  streets  of 
London  and  other  great  cities.  But  it  was  thought  that  if 
American  ships  could  carry  oil  to  England  and  salt  fish  to 
Jamaica,  the  supply  of  seamen  for  the  British  navy  would 
be  diminished  ;  and  accordingly  such  privileges  must  not 
be  granted  the  Americans  unless  valuable  privileges  could 
be  granted  in  return.  But  the  government  of  the  United 
States  could  grant  no  privileges  because  it  could  impose  no 
restrictions.  British  manufactured  goods  were  needed  in 
America,  and  Congress,  which  could  levy  no  duties,  had 
no  power  to  keep  them  out.  British  merchants  and  manu 
facturers,  it  was  argued,  already  enjoyed  all  needful  privi 
leges  in  American  ports,  and  accordingly  they  asked  no 
favours  and  granted  none. 

Such  were  the  arguments  to  which  Adams  was  obliged  to 
listen.  The  popular  feeling  was  so  strong  that  Pitt  could 
not  have  stemmed  it  if  he  would.  It  was  in  vain  that  Adams 
threatened  reprisals,  and  urged  that  the  British  measures 
would  defeat  their  own  purpose.  "  The  end  of  the  Naviga 
tion  Act,"  said  he,  "  as  expressed  in  its  own  preamble,  is  to 
confine  the  commerce  of  the  colonies  to  the  mother  country ; 
but  now  we  are  become  independent  states,  instead  of  con 
fining  our  trade  to  Great  Britain,  it  will  drive  it  to  other 
countries  :  "  and  he  suggested  that  the  Americans  might 
make  a  navigation  act  in  their  turn,  admitting  to  American 
ports  none  but  American-built  ships,  owned  and  commanded 


1785 


DRIFTING    TOWARD    ANARCHY 


145 


VIEW    FROM    BATTERY,    NEW   YORK 

by  Americans.  But  under  the  articles  of  confederation  such 
a  threat  was  idle,  and  the  British  government  knew  it  to  be 
so.  Thirteen  separate  state  governments  could  never  be 
made  to  adopt  any  such  measure  in  concert.  The  weakness 
of  Congress  had  been  fatally  revealed  in  its  inability  to 
protect  the  loyalists  or  to  enforce  the  payment  of  debts, 
and  in  its  failure  to  raise  a  revenue  for  meeting  its  current 
expenses.  A  government  thus  slighted  at  home  was  natu 
rally  despised  abroad.  Great  Britain  neglected  to  send  a 
minister  to  Philadelphia,  and  while  Adams  was  treated 
politely,  his  arguments  were  unheeded.  Whether  in  this 
behaviour  Pitt's  government  was  influenced  or  not  by  politi 
cal  as  well  as  economical  reasons,  it  was  certain  that  a 
political  purpose  was  entertained  by  the  king  and  approved 
by  many  people.  There  was  an  intention  of  humiliating 
the  Americans,  and  it  was  commonly  said  that  under  a  suffi 
cient  weight  of  commercial  distress  the  states  would  break 
up  their  feeble  union  and  come  straggling  back,  one  after 
another,  to  their  old  allegiance.  The  fiery  spirit  of  Adams 
could  ill  brook  this  contemptuous  treatment  of  the  nation 


146  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

which  he  represented.  Though  he  favoured  very  liberal 
commercial  relations  with  the  whole  world,  he  could  see  no 
escape  from  the  present  difficulties  save  in  systematic  re 
taliation.  "  I  should  be  sorry,"  he  said,  "  to  adopt  a  monop 
oly,  but,  driven  to  the  necessity  of  it,  I  would  not  do  things 
by  halves.  ...  If  monopolies  and  exclusions  are  the  only 
arms  of  defence  against  monopolies  and  exclusions,  I  would 
venture  upon  them  without  fear  of  offending  Dean  Tucker 
or  the  ghost  of  Dr.  Quesnay."  That  is  to  say,  certain  com 
mercial  privileges  must  be  withheld  from  Great  Britain,  in 
order  to  be  offered  to  her  in  return  for  reciprocal  privileges. 
It  was  a  miserable  policy  to  be  forced  to  adopt,  for  such 
restrictions  upon  trade  inevitably  cut  both  ways.  Like  the 
non-importation  agreement  of  1 768  and  the  embargo  of  1 808, 
such  a  policy  was  open  to  the  objections  familiarly  urged 
against  biting  off  one's  own  nose.  It  was  injuring  one's  self 
in  the  hope  of  injuring  somebody  else.  It  was  perpetuating 
in  time  of  peace  the  obstacles  to  commerce  generated  by  a 
state  of  war.  In  a  certain  sense,  it  was  keeping  up  warfare 
by  commercial  instead  of  military  methods,  and  there  was 
danger  that  it  might  lead  to  a  renewal  of  armed  conflict. 
Nevertheless,  the  conduct  of  the  British  government  seemed 
to  Adams  to  leave  no  other  course  open.  But  such  "  means 
of  preserving  ourselves,"  he  said,  "can never  be  secured  until 
Congress  shall  be  made  supreme  in  foreign  commerce." 

It  was  obvious  enough  that  the  separate  action  of  the 
states  upon  such  a  question  was  only  adding  to  the  general 
Reprisal  uncertainty  and  confusion.  In  1785  New  York 
bie^tif  ^a^  a  Double  duty  on  all  goods  whatever  imported 
states  im-  in  British  ships.  In  the  same  year  Pennsylvania 
flicting  passed  the  first  of  the  infamous  series  of  American 
tariff  acts,  designed  to  tax  the  whole  community 
for  the  benefit  of  a  few  greedy  manufacturers.  Massachu 
setts  sought  to  establish  committees  of  correspondence  for 
the  purpose  of  entering  into  a  new  non-importation  agree-, 
ment,  and  its  legislature  resolved  that  "  the  present  powers 
of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  as  contained  in  the 


1785  DRIFTING   TOWARD   ANARCHY  147 

articles  of  confederation,  are  not  fully  adequate  to  the  great 
purposes  they  were  originally  designed  to  effect."  The 
Massachusetts  delegates  in  Congress  —  Gerry,  Holton,  and 
King  —  were  instructed  to  recommend  a  general  convention 
of  the  states  for  the  purpose  of  revising  and  amending  the 
articles  of  confederation ;  but  the  delegates  refused  to  com 
ply  with  their  instructions,  and  set  forth  their  reasons  in  a 
paper  which  was  approved  by  Samuel  Adams,  and  caused 


ROOM    IN    FRAUNCES'S    TAVERN 

the  legislature  to  reconsider  its  action.  It  was  feared  that 
a  call  for  a  convention  might  seem  too  much  like  an  open 
expression  of  a  want  of  confidence  in  Congress,  and  might 
thereby  weaken  it  still  further  without  accomplishing  any 
good  result.  For  the  present,  as  a  temporary  expedient, 
Massachusetts  took  counsel  with  New  Hampshire,  and  the 
two  states  passed  navigation  acts,  prohibiting  British  ships 
from  carrying  goods  out  of  their  harbours,  and  imposing  a 
fourfold  duty  upon  all  such  goods  as  they  should  bring  in. 
A  discriminating  tonnage  duty  was  also  laid  upon  all  foreign 
vessels.  Rhode  Island  soon  after  adopted  similar  measures. 
In  Congress  a  scheme  for  a  uniform  navigation  act,  to  be 
concurred  in  and  passed  by  all  the  thirteen  states,  was  sug 
gested  by  one  of  the  Maryland  delegates ;  but  it  was  opposed 
by  Richard  Henry  Lee  and  most  of  the  delegates  from  the 
far  south.  The  southern  states,  having  no  ships  or  seamen 


148  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

of  their  own,  feared  that  the  exclusion  of  British  competi 
tion  might  enable  northern  ship-owners  to  charge  exorbitant 
rates  for  carrying  their  rice  and  tobacco,  thus  subjecting 
them  to  a  ruinous  monopoly  ;  but  the  gallant  Moultrie,  then 
governor  of  South  Carolina,  taking  a  broader  view  of  the 
case,  wrote  to  Bowdoin,  governor  of  Massachusetts,  assert 
ing  the  paramount  need  of  harmonious  and  united  action. 
In  the  Virginia  assembly,  a  hot  -  headed  member,  Rev. 
Charles  Thruston,  known  as  "  the  warrior  parson,"  declared 
himself  in  doubt  "  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  encour 
age  the  British  rather  than  the  eastern  marine ;  "  but  the 
remark  was  greeted  with  hisses  and  groans.  Amid  such 
mutual  jealousies  and  misgivings,  during  the  year  1785  acts 
were  passed  by  ten  states  granting  to  Congress  the  power 
of  regulating  commerce  for  the  ensuing  thirteen  years. 
The  three  states  which  refrained  from  acting  were  Georgia, 
South  Carolina,  and  Delaware.  The  acts  of  the  other  ten 
"were,  as  might  have  been  expected,  a  jumble  of  incongrui 
ties.  North  Carolina  granted  all  the  power  that  was  asked, 
but  stipulated  that  when  all  the  states  should  have  done 
likewise  their  acts  should  be  summed  up  in  a  new  article  of 
confederation.  Connecticut,  Pennsylvania,  and  Maryland 
had  fixed  the  date  at  which  the  grant  was  to  take  effect, 
while  Rhode  Island  provided  that  it  should  not  expire 
until  after  the  lapse  of  twenty-five  years.  The  grant  by 
New  Hampshire  allowed  the  power  to  be  used  only  in  one 
specified  way,  —  by  restricting  the  duties  imposable  by  the 
several  states.  The  grants  of  Massachusetts,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Virginia  were  not  to  take  effect  until  all 
the  others  should  go  into  operation.  The  only  thing  which 
Congress  could  do  with  these  acts  was  to  refer  them  back  to 
the  several  legislatures,  with  a  polite  request  to  try  to  reduce 
them  to  something  like  uniformity. 

Meanwhile,  the  different  states,  with  their  different  tariff 
and  tonnage  acts,  began  to  make  commercial  war  upon 
one  another.  No  sooner  had  the  other  three  New  England 
states  virtually  closed  their  ports  to  British  shipping  than 


1785 


DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY 


149 


Connecticut  threw  hers  wide  open,  an  act  which  she  fol 
lowed  up  by  laying  duties  upon  imports  from  commercial 
Massachusetts.  Pennsylvania  discriminated  against  different661* 
Delaware,  and  New  Jersey,  pillaged  at  once  by  both  states 
her  greater  neighbours,  was  compared  to  a  cask  tapped  at 
both  ends.  The  conduct  of  New  York  became  especially 


selfish  and  blameworthy.  That  rapid  growth  which  was  so 
soon  to  carry  the  city  and  the  state  to  a  position  of  primacy 
in  the  Union  had  already  begun.  After  the  departure  of 
the  British  the  revival  of  business  went  on  with  leaps  and 
bounds.  The  feeling  of  local  patriotism  waxed  strong,  and 
in  no  one  was  it  more  fully  manifested  than  in  George  Clin 
ton,  the  Revolutionary  general,  whom  the  people  elected 
governor  for  six  successive  terms.  He  was  a  kinsman  of 
Sir  Henry  Clinton,  the  British  general  ;  both  were  descended 
from  Earls  of  Lincoln.  By  dint  of  shrewdness  and  untiring 


150  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

push,  George  Clinton  had  come  to  be  for  the  moment  the 
most  powerful  man  in  the  state  of  New  York.  He  had 
come  to  look  upon  the  state  almost  as  if  it  were  his  own 
private  manor,  and  his  life  was  devoted  to  furthering  its 
interests  as  he  understood  them.  It  was  his  first  article 
of  faith  that  New  York  must  be  the  greatest  state  in  the 
Union.  But  his  conceptions  of  statesmanship  were  ex 
tremely  narrow.  In  his  mind,  the  welfare  of  New  York 
meant  the  pulling  down  and  thrusting  aside  of  all  her  neigh 
bours  and  rivals.  He  was,  the  vigorous  and  steadfast 
advocate  of  every  illiberal  and  exclusive  measure,  and  the 
most  uncompromising  enemy  to  a  closer  union  of  the  states. 
His  great  popular  strength  and  the  commercial  importance 
of  the  community  in  which  he  held  sway  made  him  at  this 
time  the  most  dangerous  man  in  America.  The  political 
victories  presently  to  be  won  by  Hamilton,  Schuyler,  and 
Livingston,  without  which  our  grand  and  pacific  federal 
union  could  not  have  been  brought  into  being,  were  victories 
won  by  most  desperate  fighting  against  the  dogged  opposi 
tion  of  Clinton.  Under  his  guidance,  the  history  of  New 
York,  during  the  five  years  following  the  peace  of  1783,  was 
a  shameful  story  of  greedy  monopoly  and  sectional  hate. 
Of  all  the  thirteen  states,  none  behaved  worse  except  Rhode 
Island. 

A  single  instance,  which  occurred  early  in  1787,  may 
serve  as  an  illustration.  The  city  of  New  York,  with  its 
population  of  30,000  souls,  had  long  been  supplied  with  fire 
wood  from  Connecticut,  and  with  butter  and  cheese, 
chickens  and  garden  vegetables,  from  the  thrifty  farms  of 
New  Jersey.  This  trade,  it  was  observed,  carried  thousands 
of  dollars  out  of  the  city  and  into  the  pockets  of  detested 
Yankees  and  despised  Jerseymen.  It  was  ruinous  to 
domestic  industry,  said  the  men  of  New  York.  It  must  be 
stopped  by  those  effective  remedies  of  the  Sangrado  school 
of  economic  doctors,  a  navigation  act  and  a  protective  tariff. 
Acts  were  accordingly  passed,  obliging  every  Yankee  sloop 
which  came  down  through  Hell  Gate,  and  every  Jersey 


152  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

market  boat  which  was  rowed  across  from  Paulus  Hook  to 
Cortlandt  Street,  to  pay  entrance  fees  and  obtain  clearances 
at  the  custom-house,  just  as  was  done  by  ships  from  London 
or  Hamburg ;  and  not  a  cart-load  of  Connecticut  firewood 
could  be  delivered  at  the  back-door  of  a  country-house  in 
Beekman  Street  until  it  should  have  paid  a  heavy  duty. 
Great  and  just  was  the  wrath  of  the  farmers  and  lumbermen. 
The  New  Jersey  legislature  made  up  its  mind  to  retaliate. 
The  city  of  New  York  had  lately  bought  a  small  patch  of 
ground  on  Sandy  Hook,  and  had  built  a  light-house  there. 
This  light-house  was  the  one  weak  spot  in  the  heel  of 
Achilles  where  a  hostile  arrow  could  strike,  and  New  Jersey 
gave  vent  to  her  indignation  by  laying  a  tax  of  $1,800  a  year 
on  it.  Connecticut  was  equally  prompt.  At  a  great  meet 
ing  of  business  men,  held  at  New  London,  it  was  unani 
mously  agreed  to  suspend  all  commercial  intercourse  with 
New  York.  Every  merchant  signed  an  agreement,  under 
penalty  of  $250  for  the  first  offence,  not  to  send  any  goods 
whatever  into  the  hated  state  for  a  period  of  twelve  months. 
By  such  retaliatory  measures,  it  was  hoped  that  New  York 
might  be  compelled  to  rescind  her  odious  enactment.  But 
such  meetings  and  such  resolves  bore  an  ominous  likeness 
to  the  meetings  and  resolves  which  in  the  years  before  1775 
had  heralded  a  state  of  war  ;  and  but  for  the  good  work 
done  by  the  federal  convention  another  five  years  would 
scarcely  have  elapsed  before  shots  would  have  been  fired 
and  seeds  of  perennial  hatred  sown  on  the  shores  that  look 
toward  Manhattan  Island. 

To  these  commercial  disputes  there  were  added  disputes 
about  territory.  The  chronic  quarrel  between  Connecticut 
and  Pennsylvania  over  the  valley  of  Wyoming  was  decided 
Disputes  m  tne  autumn  of  1782  by  a  special  federal  court, 
about  terri-  appointed  in  accordance  with  the  articles  of  con- 

tory ;  dis-          ^^ 

asters  in       federation.     The  prize  was  adj  udged  to  Pennsylva- 

the  valley  of       .  n     ,  r   ~  J  .  -,        •         i 

Wyoming,    ma,  and  the  government  of  Connecticut  submitted 

as  gracefully  as  possible.     But  new  troubles  were 

in  store  for  the  inhabitants  of  that  beautiful  region.     The 


CONNECTICUT  SETTLEMENTS 
I.N 

PENNSYLVANIA. 


i54  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

traces  of  the  massacre  of  1778  had  disappeared,  the  houses 
had  been  rebuilt,  new  settlers  had  come  in,  and  the  pretty 
villages  had  taken  on  their  old  look  of  contentment  and 
thrift,  when  in  the  spring  of  1784  there  came  an  accumula 
tion  of  disasters.  During  a  very  cold  winter  great  quantities 
of  snow  had.  fallen,  and  lay  piled  in  huge  masses  on  the 
mountain  sides,  until  in  March  a  sudden  thaw  set  in.  The 
Susquehanna  rose,  and  overflowed  the  valley,  and  great 
blocks  of  ice  drifted  here  and  there,  carrying  death  and 
destruction  with  them.  Houses,  barns,  and  fences  were 
swept  away,  the  cattle  were  drowned,  the  fruit  trees  broken 
down,  the  stores  of  food  destroyed,  and  over  the  whole 
valley  there  lay  a  stratum  of  gravel  and  pebbles.  The 
people  were  starving  with  cold  and  hunger,  and  President 
Dickinson  urged  the  legislature  to  send  prompt  relief  to  the 
sufferers.  But  the  hearts  of  the  members  were  as  flint,  and 
their  talk  was  incredibly  wicked.  Not  a  penny  would  they 
give  to  help  the  accursed  Yankees.  It  served  them  right. 
If  they  had  stayed  in  Connecticut,  where  they  belonged, 
they  would  have  kept  out  of  harm's  way.  And  with  a 
blasphemy  thinly  veiled  in  phrases  of  pious  unction,  the 
desolation  of  the  valley  was  said  to  have  been  contrived 
by  the  Deity  with  the  express  object  of  punishing  these 
trespassers.  But  the  cruelty  of  the  Pennsylvania  legislature 
was  not  confined  to  .words.  A  scheme  was  devised  for 
driving  out  the  settlers  and  partitioning  their  lands  among  a 
company  of  speculators.  A  force  of  militia  was  sent  to  Wyo 
ming,  commanded  by  a  truculent  creature  named  Patterson. 
The  ostensible  purpose  was  to  assist  in  restoring  order  in 
the  valley,  but  the  behaviour  of  the  soldiers  was  such  as 
would  have  disgraced  a  horde  of  barbarians.  They  stole 
what  they  could  find,  dealt  out  blows  to  the  men  and  insults 
to  the  women,  until  their  violence  was  met  with  violence  in 
return.  Then  Patterson  sent  a  letter  to  President  Dickin 
son,  accusing  the  farmers  of  sedition,  and  hinting  that 
extreme  measures  were  necessary.  Having  thus,  as  he 
thought,  prepared  the  way,  he  attacked  the  settlement, 


1 784 


DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY 


I55 


turned  some  five  hundred  people  out-of-doors,  and  burned 
their  houses  to  the  ground.  The  wretched  victims,  many  of 
them  tender  women,  or  infirm  old  men,  or  little  children, 
were  driven  into  the  wilderness  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet, 
and  told  to  find  their  way  to  Connecticut  without  further 
delay.  Heartrending  scenes  ensued.  Many  died  of  exhaus 
tion,  or  furnished  food  for  wolves.  But  this  was  more  than 
the  Pennsylvania  legislature  had  intended.  Patterson's  zeal 


had  carried  him  too  far.  He  was  recalled,  and  the  sheriff 
of  Northumberland  County  was  sent,  with  a  posse  of  men, 
to  protect  the  settlers.  Patterson  disobeyed,  however,  and 
withdrawing  his  men  to  a  fortified  lair  in  the  mountains, 
kept  up  a  guerilla  warfare.  All  the  Connecticut  men  in  the 
neighbouring  country  flew  to  arms.  Men  were  killed  on 
both  sides,  and  presently  Patterson  was  besieged.  A  regi- 


156  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

ment  of  soldiers  was  then  sent  from  Philadelphia,  under 
Colonel  Armstrong,  who  had  formerly  been  on  Gates's  staff, 
the  author  of  the  incendiary  Newburgh  address.  On  arriv 
ing  in  the  valley,  Armstrong  held  a  parley  with  the  Con 
necticut  men,  and  persuaded  them  to  lay  down  their  arms ; 
assuring  them  on  his  honour  that  they  should  meet  with 
no  ill  treatment,  and  that  their  enemy,  Patterson,  should 
be  disarmed  also.  Having  thus  fallen  into  this  soldier's 
clutches,  they  were  forthwith  treated  as  prisoners.  Seventy- 
six  of  them  were  handcuffed  and  sent  under  guard,  some 
to  Easton  and  some  to  Northumberland,  where  they  were 
thrown  into  jail.1 

Great  was  the  indignation  in  New  England  when  these 
deeds  were  heard  of.  The  matter  had  become  very  serious. 
A  war  between  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania  might  easily 
grow  out  of  it.  But  the  danger  was  averted  through  a 
singular  feature  in  the  Pennsylvania  constitution.  In  order 
to  hold  its  legislature  in  check,  Pennsylvania  had  a  council 
of  censors,  which  was  assembled  once  in  seven  years  in 
order  to  inquire  whether  the  state  had  been  properly  gov 
erned  during  the  interval.  Soon  after  the  troubles  in 
Wyoming  the  regular  meeting  of  the  censors  was  held,  and 
the  conduct  of  Armstrong  and  Patterson  was  unreservedly 
condemned.  A  hot  controversy  ensued  between  the  legisla 
ture  and  the  censors,  and  as  the  people  set  great  store  by 
the  latter  peculiar  institution,  public  sympathy  was  gradually 
awakened  for  the  sufferers.  The  wickedness  of  the  affair 
began  to  dawn  upon  people's  minds,  and  they  were  ashamed 
of  what  had  been  done.  Patterson  and  Armstrong  were 
frowned  down,  the  legislature  disavowed  their  acts,  and  it 
was  ordered  that  full  reparation  should  be  made  to  the 
persecuted  settlers  of  Wyoming. 

In  the  Green  Mountains  and  on  the  upper  waters  of  the 

1  See  Chapman's  History  of  Wyoming,  Wilkes-Barre',  1830;  Miner's 
History  of  Wyoming,  Philadelphia,  1845  ;  Stone's  Poetry  and  History 
of  Wyoming,  New  York,  1844;  Hoyt's  Seventeen  Townships  in  the 
County  of  Luzerne,  Harrisburg,  1879. 


1777-84  DRIFTING   TOWARD   ANARCHY  157 

Connecticut  there  had  been  trouble  for  many  years.  In  the 
course  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  the  fierce  dispute  between 
New  York  and  New  Hampshire  for  the  possession  of  the 
Green  Mountains  came  in  from  time  to  time  to  influence 
most  curiously  the  course  of  events.  It  was  closely  con 
nected  with  the  intrigues  against  General  Schuyler,  and  thus 
more  remotely  with  the  Conway  cabal  and  the  treason  of 
Arnold.  About  the  time  of  Burgoyne's  invasion  the  asso 
ciation  of  Green  Mountain  Boys  endeavoured  to  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  by  declaring  Vermont  an  independent  state, 
and  applying  to  the  Continental  Congress  for  ad-  Troubles 
mission  into  the  Union.  The  New  York  delegates  g^ 
in  Congress  succeeded  in  defeating  this  scheme,  Mountains, 
but  the  Vermont  people  went  on  and  framed  their  I777~ 
constitution.  Thomas  Chittenden,  a  man  of  little  education 
but  very  considerable  ability,  a  farmer  and  innkeeper,1  like 
Israel  Putnam,  was  chosen  governor,  and  held  that  position 
for  many  years.  New  Hampshire  thus  far  had  not  actively 
opposed  these  measures,  but  fresh  grounds  of  quarrel  were 
soon  at  hand.  Several  towns  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Con 
necticut  River  wished  to  escape  from  the  jurisdiction  of 
New  Hampshire.  They  preferred  to  belong  to  Vermont, 
because  it  was  not  within  the  Union,  and  accordingly  not 
liable  to  requisitions  of  taxes  from  the  Continental  Con 
gress.  It  was  conveniently  remembered  that  by  the  original 
grant,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  New  Hampshire  extended 
only  sixty  miles  from  the  coast.  Vermont  was  at  first 
inclined  to  assent,  but  finding  the  scheme  unpopular  in  Con 
gress,  and  not  wishing  to  offend  that  body,  she  changed  her 
mind.  The  towns  on  both  banks  of  the  river  then  tried  to 
organize  themselves  into  a  middle  state,  —  a  sort  of  Lotha- 
ringia  on  the  banks  of  this  New  World  Rhine,  —  to  be 
called  New  Connecticut.  "By  this  time  New  Hampshire 

1  I  have  noticed  that  to  readers  unfamiliar  with  the  early  history  of 
New  England,  the  mention  of  these  occupations  is  misleading.  Both 
Putnam  and  Chittenden  were  gentlemen  of  eminently  respectable  an 
cestry. 


158  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

was  aroused,  and  she  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  she 
still  believed  herself  entitled  to  dominion  over  the  whole  of 
Vermont.  Massachusetts  now  began  to  suspect  that  the 
upshot  of  the  matter  would  be  the  partition  of  the  whole 
disputed  territory  between  New  Hampshire  and  New  York, 
and,  ransacking  her  ancient  grants  and  charters,  she  decided 
to  set  up  a  claim  on  her  own  part  to  the  southernmost  towns 
in  Vermont.  Thus  goaded  on  all  sides,  Vermont  adopted 
an  aggressive  policy.  She  not  only  annexed  the  towns  east 
of  the  Connecticut  River,  but  also  asserted  sovereignty  over 
the  towns  in  New  York  as  far  as  the  Hudson.  New  York 
sent  troops  to  the  threatened  frontier,  New  Hampshire  pre 
pared  to  do  likewise,  and  for  a  moment  war  seemed  inevita 
ble.  But  here,  as  in  so  many  other  instances,  Washington 
appeared  as  peacemaker,  and  prevailed  upon  Governor  Chit- 
tenden  to  use  his  influence  in  getting  the  dangerous  claims 
withdrawn.1  After  the  spring  of  1784  the  outlook  was  less 
stormy  in  the  Green  Mountains.  The  conflicting  claims 
were  allowed  to  lie  dormant,  but  the  possibilities  of  mischief 
remained,  and  the  Vermont  question  was  not  finally  settled 
until  after  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  Mean 
while,  on  the  debatable  frontier  between  Vermont  and  New 
York  the  embers  of  hatred  smouldered.  Barns  and  houses 
were  set  on  fire,  and  belated  wayfarers  were  found  mysteri 
ously  murdered  in  the  depths  of  the  forest. 

Incidents  like  these  of  Wyoming  and  Vermont  seem 
trivial,  perhaps,  when  contrasted  with  the  lurid  tales  of 
border  warfare  in  older  times  between  half-civilized  peoples 
of  mediaeval  Europe,  as  we  read  them  in  the  pages  of  Frois- 
sart  and  Sir  Walter  Scott.  But  their  historic  lesson  is  none 
the  less  clear.  Though  they  lift  the  curtain 'but  a  little  way, 
they  show  us  a  glimpse  of  the  untold  dangers  and  horrors 
from  which  the  adoption  of  our  Federal  Constitution  has  so 

1  The  story  of  the  Vermont  difficulties  has  been  well  summed  up  by 
Hildreth,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  iii.  pp.  407-410.  See,  also, 
Benton,  The  Vermont  Settlers  and  the  New  York  Land  Speculators, 
Minneapolis,  1894. 


1 784 


DRIFTING   TOWARD   ANARCHY 


159 


thoroughly  freed  us  that  we  can  only  with  some  effort  realize 
how  narrowly  we  have  escaped  them.  It  is  fit  that  they 
should  be  borne  in  mind,  that  we  may  duly  appreciate  the 
significance  of  the  reign  of  law  and  order  which  has  been 
established  on  this  continent  during  the  greater  part  of  a 
century.  When  reported  in  Europe,  such  incidents  were 


held  to  confirm  the  opinion  that  the  American  confederacy 
was  going  to  pieces.  With  quarrels  about  trade  and  quarrels 
about  boundaries,  we  seemed  to  be  treading  the  old-fashioned 
paths  of  anarchy,  even  as  they  had  been  trodden  in  other 
ages  and  other  parts  of  the  world.  It  was  natural  that 
people  in  Europe  should  think  so,  because  there  was  no  his 
toric  precedent  to  help*them  in  forming  a  different  opinion. 
No  one  could  possibly  foresee  that  within  five  years  a  num 
ber  of  gentlemen  at  Philadelphia,  containing  among  them 
selves  an  amount  of  political  sagacity  such  as  has  seldom 


160  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

been  brought  together  within  the  walls  of  a  single  room, 
would  amicably  discuss  the  situation  and  agree  upon  a  new 
system  of  government  whereby  the  dangers  might  be  once 
for  all  averted.  Still  less  could  any  one  foresee  that  these 
gentlemen  would  not  only  agree  upon  a  scheme  among  them 
selves,  but  would  actually  succeed,  without  serious  civil 
dissension,  in  making  the  people  of  thirteen  states  adopt, 
defend,  and  cherish  it.  History  afforded  no  example  of  so 
large  an  act  of  constructive  statesmanship.  It  was,  more 
over,  a  strange  and  apparently  fortuitous  combination  of  cir 
cumstances  that  were  now  preparing  the  way  for  it  and 
making  its  accomplishment  possible.  No  one  could  forecast 
the  future.  When  our  ministers  and  agents  in  Europe  raised 
the  question  as  to  making  commercial  treaties,  they  were 
One  nation  Disdainfully  asked  whether  European  powers  were 
or  thir-  expected  to  deal  with  thirteen  governments  or  with 
one.  If  it  was  answered  that  the  United  States 
constituted  a  single  government  so  far  as  their  relations  with 
foreign  powers  were  concerned,  then  we  were  forthwith 
twitted  with  our  failure  to  keep  our  engagements  with  Eng 
land  with  regard  to  the  loyalists  and  the  collection  of  private 
debts.  Yes,  we  see,  said  the  European  diplomats ;  the 
United  States  are  one  nation  to-day  and  thirteen  to-morrow, 
according  as  may  seem  to  subserve  their  selfish  interests. 
Jefferson,  at  Paris,  was  told  again  and  again  that  it  was  use 
less  for  the  French  government  to  enter  into  any  agreement 
with  the  United  States,  as  there  was  no  certainty  that  it 
would  be  fulfilled  on  our  part ;  and  the  same  things  were 
said  all  over  Europe.  Toward  the  close  of  the  war  most  of 
the  European  nations  had  seemed  ready  to  enter  into  com 
mercial  arrangements  with  the  United  States,  but  all  save 
Holland  speedily  lost  interest  in  the  subject.  John  Adams 
had  succeeded  in  making  a  treaty  with  Holland  in  1782. 
Frederick  the  Great  treated  us  more  civilly  than  other  sov 
ereigns.  One  of  the  last  acts  of  his  life  was  to  conclude  a 
treaty  for  ten  years  with  the  United  States  ;  asserting  the 
principle  that  free  ships  make  free  goods,  taking  arms  and 


1784  DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY  161 

military  stores  out  of  the  class  of  contraband,  agreeing  to 
refrain  from  privateering  even  in  case  of  war  between  the 
two  countries,  and  in  other  respects  showing  a  liberal  and 
enlightened  spirit. 

This  treaty  was  concluded  in  1786.  It  scarcely  touched 
the  subject  of  international  trade  in  time  of  peace,  but  it 
was  valuable  as  regarded  the  matters  it  covered,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  general  failure  of  American  diplomacy  in  Eu 
rope  it  fell  pleasantly  upon  our  ears.  Our  diplomacy  had 
failed  because  our  weakness  had  been  proclaimed  to  the 
world.  We  were  bullied  by  England,  insulted  by  France 
and  Spain,  and  looked  askance  at  in  Holland.  The  humili 
ating  position  in  which  our  ministers  were  placed  by  the 
beggarly  poverty  of  Congress  was  something  almost  beyond 
credence.  It  was  by  no  means  unusual  for  the  superin 
tendent  of  finance,  when  hard  pushed  for  money,  to  draw 
upon  our  foreign  ministers,  and  then  sell  the  drafts  for  cash. 
This  was  not  only  not  unusual ;  it  was  an  established  cus 
tom.  It  was  done  again  and  again,  when  there  was  not  the 
smallest  ground  for  supposing  that  the  minister  upon  whom 
the  draft  was  made  would  have  any  funds  wherewith  to  meet 
it.  He  must  go  and  beg  the  money.  That  was  part  of 
his  duty  as  envoy,  —  to  solicit  loans  without  security  for  a 
government  that  could  not  raise  enough  money  by 
taxation  to  defray  its  current  expenses.  It  was  American 

'  credit  • 

sickening   work.      Just    before   John   Adams   had   j0hn  ' 
been  appointed  minister  to  England,  and  while  he   4ggtngin 
was  visiting  in  London,  he  suddenly  learned  that    Holland, 
drafts  upon  him  had  been  presented  to  his  bankers 
in  Amsterdam  to  the  amount  of  more  than  a  million  florins. 
Less  than  half  a  million  florins  were  on  hand  to  meet  these 
demands,    and   unless    something   were   done   at    once   the 
greater  part  of  this  paper  would  go  back  to  America  pro 
tested.     Adams  lost  not  a  moment  in  starting  for  Holland. 
In  these  modern  days  of  precision  in  travel,  when  we  can 
translate  space  into  time,  the  distance  between  London  and 
Amsterdam  is  eleven  hours.     It  was  accomplished  by  Adams, 


1 62  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

after  innumerable  delays  and  vexations  and  no  little  danger, 
in  three  weeks.  The  bankers  had  contrived,  by  ingenious 
excuses,  to  keep  the  drafts  from  going  to  protest  until  the 
minister's  arrival,  but  the  gazettes  were  full  of  the  troubles 
of  Congress  and  the  bickerings  of  the  states,  and  everybody 
was  suspicious.  Adams  applied  in  vain  to  the  regency  of 
Amsterdam.  The  promise  of  the  American  government 
was  not  regarded  as  valid  security  for  a  sum  equivalent  to 
about  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  members  of 
the  regency  were  polite,  but  inexorable.  They  could  not 
make  a  loan  on  such  terms ;  it  was  unbusinesslike  and  con 
trary  to  precedent.  Finding  them  immovable,  Adams  was 
forced  to  apply  to  professional  usurers  and  Jew  brokers, 
from  whom,  after  three  weeks  of  perplexity  and  humiliation, 
he  obtained  a  loan  at  exorbitant  interest,  and  succeeded  in 
meeting  the  drafts.  It  was  only  too  plain,  as  he  mournfully 
confessed,  that  American  credit  was  dead.1  Such  were  the 
trials  of  our  American  ministers  in  Europe  in  the  dark  days 
of  the  League  of  Friendship.  It  was  not  a  solitary,  but  a 
typical,  instance.  John  Jay's  experience  at  the  unfriendly 
court  of  Spain  was  perhaps  even  more  trying. 

European  governments  might  treat  us  with  cold  disdain, 
and  European  bankers  might  pronounce  our  securities 
worthless,  but  there  was  one  quarter  of  the  world  from  which 
even  worse  measure  was  meted  out  to  us.  Of  all  the  bar 
barous  communities  with  which  the  civilized  world  has  had 
to  deal  in  modern  times,  perhaps  none  have  made  so  much 
trouble  as  the  Mussulman  states  on  the  southern  shore  of 

1  The  story  is  told  in  John  Adams's  Works,  vol.  viii.  pp.  153-191. 
In  a  letter  called  forth  by  the  affair,  Franklin  thus  hits  the  nail  on  the 
head  :  "  I  hope  these  mischievous  events  will  at  length  convince  our 
people  of  the  truth  of  what  I  long  since  wrote  to  them,  that  the  founda 
tion  of  credit  abroad  must  be  laid  at  home.  When  the  States  have  not 
faith  enough  in  a  Congress  of  their  own  choosing  to  trust  it  with  money 
for  the  payment  of  their  common  debt,  how  can  they  expect  that  that 
Congress  should  meet  with  credit  when  it  wants  to  borrow  more  money 
for  their  use  from  strangers."  Franklin  to  John  Adams,  Passy,  5. 
Feb.,  1784. 


1784  DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY  163 

the  Mediterranean.  After  the  breaking  up  of  the  great 
Moorish  kingdoms  of  the  Middle  Ages,  this  region  had  fallen 
under  the  nominal  control  of  the  Turkish  sultans  as  lords 
paramount  of  the  orthodox  Mohammedan  world.  Its  miser- 


JOHN    ADAMS 

able  populations  became  the  prey  of  banditti.  Swarms  of 
half-savage  chieftains  settled  down  upon  the  land  The  Bar- 
like  locusts,  and  out  of  such  a  pandemonium  of  barypirates 
robbery  and  murder  as  has  scarcely  been  equalled  in  historic 
times  the  pirate  states  of  Morocco  and  Algiers,  Tunis  and 
Tripoli,  gradually  emerged.  Of  these  communities  history 
has  not  one  good  word  to  say.  In  these  fair  lands,  once 
illustrious  for  the  genius  and  virtues  of  a  Hannibal  and  the 
profound  philosophy  of  St.  Augustine,  there  grew  up  some 
of  the  most  terrible  despotisms  ever  known  to  the  world. 
The  things  done  daily  by  the  robber  sovereigns  were  such 
as  to  make  a  civilized  imagination  recoil  with  horror.  One 


164  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

of  these  cheerful  creatures,  who  reigned  at  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  was  called  Muley  Ismail, 
especially  prided  himself  on  his  peculiar  skill  in  mounting  a 
horse.  Resting  his  left  hand  upon  the  horse's  neck,  as  he 
sprang  into  the  saddle  he  simultaneously  swung  the  sharp 
scimiter  in  his  right  hand  so  deftly  as  to  cut  off  the  head 
of  the  groom  who  held  the  bridle.1  From  his  behaviour  in 
these  sportive  moods  one  may  judge  what  he  was  capable 
of  on  serious  occasions.  He  was  a  fair  sample  of  the  Bar- 
bary  monarchs.  The  foreign  policy  of  these  wretches  was 
summed  up  in  piracy  and  blackmail.  Their  corsairs  swept 
the  Mediterranean  and  ventured  far  out  upon  the  ocean,  cap 
turing  merchant  vessels,  and  murdering  or  enslaving  their 
crews.  Of  the  rich  booty,  a  fixed  proportion  was  paid  over 
to  the  robber  sovereign,  and  the  rest  was  divided  among 
the  gang.  So  lucrative  was  this  business  that  it  attracted 
hardy  ruffians  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  and  the  misery 
they  inflicted  upon  mankind  during  four  centuries  was  be 
yond  calculation.  One  of  their  favourite  practices  was  the 
kidnapping  of  eminent  or  wealthy  persons,  in  the  hope  of 
extorting  ransom.  Cervantes  and  Vincent  de  Paul  wrere 
among  the  celebrated  men  who  thus  tasted  the  horrors  of 
Moorish  slavery  ;  but  it  was  a  calamity  that  might  fall  to 
the  lot  of  any  man  or  woman,  and  it  was  but  rarely  that  the 
victims  ever  regained  their  freedom. 

Against  these  pirates  the  governments  of  Europe  con 
tended  in  vain.  Swift  cruisers  frequently  captured  their 
ships,  and  from  the  days  of  Joan  of  Arc  down  to  the  days  of 
Napoleon  their  skeletons  swung  from  long  rows  of  gibbets 
on  all  the  coasts  of  Europe,  as  a  terror  and  a  warning.  But 
their  losses  were  easily  repaired,  and  sometimes  they  cruised 
in  fleets  of  seventy  or  eighty  sail,  defying  the  navies  of 
England  and  France.  It  was  not  until  after  England,  in 
Nelson's  time,  had  acquired  supremacy  in  the  Mediterra 
nean  that  this  dreadful  scourge  was  destroyed.  Americans, 

1  See  Busnot,  History  of  the  Reign  of  Muley  Is?nail,  London,  1715, 
P- 35- 


HISTORY 

O.F    T  H  E 

Reign  ofMuleylfmaeJ, 

TH  E 

Prefent  King   of  Morocco, 

Tafilef^  Sous^  &c, 


Of  the  Revolt  and  Tragical  End  of  feveral  of 
his  Sons,  and  of,  his  Wives. 

Of  the  horrid  Executions  of  many  of  his  Offi 
cers  and  Subjects. 

Of  his  Genius,  Policy,  and  Arbitrary  Govern 
ment. 

Of  the  cruel  Perfecution  of  the  Chriftian  Slaves 
in  his  Dominions  :  With  an  Account  of 
three  Voyages  to  Miquenrz,  and  Ceuta,  in 
order  to  Ranfbxn  them. 

By  F.  DOMINIC  K  Bus  NOT,  one  of 

the  CommifTaries<  for  the  Redemption  of 
Captives  in  the  Dominions  of  Morocco. 

Tranflated  "from  t  the  Original  French  ^iv,  firft 
Printed  I  at  Roan,  this  frefent  Tear,  1714. 

LONDON  :  Printed  for  A.  B  E  L  L,  at  the  Croft 
Keys  and  £&ie  in  Cornbill  5  and  J.  B  A  KE  #,  ac 
the  Black  Boy  in  ftter-NoJler-Row.  1715. 

FACSIMILE    TITLE-PAGE    OF   THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    REIGN    OF    MULEY    ISMAEL 


1 66  THE    CRITICAL  PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

however,  have  just  ground  for  pride  in  recollecting  that  their 
government  was  foremost  in  chastising  these  pirates  in  their 
own  harbours.  The  exploits  of  our  little  navy  in  the  Medi 
terranean  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  form  an 
interesting  episode  in  American  history,  but  in  the  weak  days 
American  of  thc  Confederation  our  commerce  was  plundered 
citizens  with  impunity,  and  American  citizens  were  seized 

kidnapped  ,         -i  i    • 

and  sold  into  slavery  in  the  markets  of  Algiers 
and  Tripoli.  One  reason  for  the  long  survival  of  this 
villainy  was  the  low  state  of  humanity  among  European 
nations.  An  Englishman's  sympathy  was  but  feebly  aroused 
by  the  plunder  of  Frenchmen,  and  the  bigoted  Spaniard 
looked  on  with  approval  so  long  as  it  was  Protestants  that 
were  kidnapped  and  bastinadoed.  In  1783  Lord  Sheffield 
published  a  pamphlet  on  the  commerce  of  the  United  States, 
in  which  he  shamelessly  declared  that  the  Barbary  pirates 
were  really  useful  to  the  great  maritime  powers,  because 
they  tended  to  keep  the  weaker  nations  out  of  their  share  in 
the  carrying  trade.  This,  he  thought,  was  a  valuable  offset 
to  the  Empress  Catherine's  device  of  the  armed  neutrality, 
whereby  small  nations  were  protected  ;  and  on  this  wicked 
theory,  as  Franklin  tells  us,  London  merchants  had  been 
heard  to  say  that  "if  there  were  no  Algiers,  it  would  be 
worth  England's  while  to  build  one."  It  was  largely  because 
of  such  feelings  that  the  great  states  of  Europe  so  long 
persisted  in  the  craven  policy  of  paying  blackmail  to  the 
robbers,  instead  of  joining  in  a  crusade  and  destroying  them. 
In  1786  Congress  felt  it  necessary  to  take  measures  for 
protecting  the  lives  and  liberties  of  American  citizens. 
The  person  who  was  grotesquely  called  "Emperor"  of 
Morocco  at  that  time  was  different  from  most  of  his  kind. 
He  had  a  taste  for  reading,  and  had  thus  caught  a  glimmer 
ing  of  the  enlightened  liberalism  which  French  philosophers 
were  preaching.  He  wished  to  be  thought  a  benevolent 
despot,  and  with  Morocco,  accordingly,  Congress  succeeded 
in  making  a  treaty.  But  nothing  could  be  done  with  the 
other  pirate  states  without  paying  blackmail.  Few  scenes 


I786  DRIFTING   TOWARD   ANARCHY  167 

in  our  history  are  more  amusing,  or  more  irritating,  than 
the  interview  of  John  Adams  with  an  envoy  from  Tripoli 
in  London.  The  oily-tongued  barbarian,  with  his  soft  voice 
and  his  bland  smile,  asseverating  that  his  only  interest  in 
life  was  to  do  good  and  make  other  people  happy,  stands  out 
in  fine  contrast  with  the  blunt,  straightforward,  and  truthful 
New  Englander  ;  and  their  conversation  reminds  one  of  the 
old  story  of  Coeur-de-Lion  with*  his  curtal-axe  and  Saladin 
with  the  blade  that  cut  the  silken  cushion.  Adams  felt 
sure  that  the  fellow  was  either  saint  or  devil,  but  Tripoli 
could  not  quite  tell  which.  The  envoy's  love  for  bLTkmln, 
mankind  was  so  great  that  he  could  not  bear  the  Feb-  J786 
thought  of  hostility  between  the  Americans  and  the  Barbary 
States,  and  he  suggested  that  everything  might  be  happily 
arranged  for  a  million  dollars  or  so.  Adams  thought  it 
better  to  fight  than  to  pay  tribute.  It  would  be  cheaper  in 
the  end,  as  well  as  more  manly.  At  the  same  time,  it  was 
better  economy  to  pay  a  million  dollars  at  once  than  waste 
many  times  that  sum  in  war  risks  and  loss  of  trade.  But 
Congress  could  do  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other.  It  was 
too  poor  to  build  a  navy,  and  too  poor  to  buy  off  the  pirates  ; 
and  so  for  several  years  to  come  American  ships  were 
burned  and  American  sailors  enslaved  with  impunity.  With 
the  memory  of  such  wrongs  deeply  graven  in  his  heart,  it 
was  natural  that  John  Adams,  on  becoming  President  of  the 
United  States,  should  bend  his  energies  toward  founding  a 
strong  American  navy. 

A  government  touches  the  lowest  point  of  ignominy  when 
it  confesses  its  inability  to  protect  the  lives  and   property 
of  its  citizens.     A  government  which  has  come  to   Congress 
this  has  failed  in  discharging  the  primary  function   unabie  to 
of  government,  and  forthwith  ceases  to  have  any   American 
reason   for   existing.      In    March,    1786,    Grayson 
wrote  to  Madison  that  several  members  of  Congress  thought 
seriously  of  recommending  a  general  convention  for  remod 
elling  the  government.     "  I  have  not  made  up  my  mind," 
says  Grayson,  "  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  bear  the 


1 68  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

ills  we  have  than  fly  to  those  we  know  not  of.  I  am,  how 
ever,  in  no  doubt  about  the  weakness  of  the  federal  gov 
ernment.  If  it  remains  much  longer  in  its  present  state 
of  imbecility,  we  shall  be  one  of  the  most  contemptible 
nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth."  "It  is  clear  to  me  as 


A,  B,  C,"  said  Washington,  "  that  an  extension  of  federal 
powers  would  make  us  one  of  the  most  happy,  wealthy, 
respectable,  and  powerful  nations  that  ever  inhabited  the 
terrestrial  globe.  Without  them  we  shall  soon  be  every 
thing  which  is  the  direct  reverse.  I  predict  the  worst  con 
sequences  from  a  half-starved,  limping  government,  always 
moving  upon  crutches  and  tottering  at  every  step." 

There  is  no  telling  how  long  the  wretched  state  of  things 
which  followed  the  Revolution  might  have  continued,  had 
not  the  crisis  been  precipitated  by  the  wild  attempts  of  the 
several  states  to  remedy  the  distress  of  the  people  by 
Financial  legislation.  That  financial  distress  was  widespread 
distress  and  deep-seated  was  not  to  be  denied.  At  the 
i^Tpoiitkai  beginning  of  the  war  the  amount  of  accumulated 
capital  in  the  country  had  been  very  small.  The 
great  majority  of  the  people  did  little  more  than  get  from 
the  annual  yield  of  their  farms  or  plantations  enough  to 
meet  the  current  expenses  of  the  year.  Outside  of  agricul 
ture  the  chief  resources  were  the  carrying  trade,  the  ex 
change  of  commodities  with  England  and  the  West  Indies, 
and  the  cod  and  whale  fisheries  ;  and  in  these  occupations 
many  people  had  grown  rich.  The  war  had  destroyed  all 
these  sources  of  revenue.  Imports  and  exports  had  alike 
been  stopped,  so  that  there  was  a  distressing  scarcity  of 
some  of  the  commonest  household  articles.  The  enemy's 


DOUBLOON 
$15.90 

FOREIGN    COINS    FORMERLY    IN   CIRCULATION    IN    THE   UNITED    STATES 


SPANISH    DOLLAR 
$1.00 


i;o  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

navy  had  kept  us  from  the  fisheries.  Before  the  war,  the 
dock-yards  of  Nantucket  were  ringing  with  the  busy  sound 
of  adze  and  hammer,  rope-walks  covered  the  island,  and 
two  hundred  keels  sailed  yearly  in  quest  of  spermaceti.  At 
the  return  of  peace,  the  docks  were  silent  and  grass  grew 
in  the  streets.  The  carrying  trade  and  the  fisheries  began 
soon  to  revive,  but  it  was  some  years  before  the  old  pro 
sperity  was  restored.  The  war  had  also  wrought  serious 
damage  to  agriculture,  and  in  some  parts  of  the  country  the 
direct  destruction  of  property  by  the  enemy's  troops  had 
been  very  great.  To  all  these  causes  of  poverty  there  was 
added  the  hopeless  confusion  due  to  an  inconvertible  paper 
currency.  The  worst  feature  of  this  financial  device  is  that 
it  not  only  impoverishes  people,  but  bemuddles  their  brains 
by  creating  a  false  and  fleeting  show  of  prosperity.  By 
violently  disturbing  apparent  values,  it  always  brings  on  an 
era  of  wild  speculation  and  extravagance  in  living,  followed 
by  sudden  collapse  and  protracted  suffering.  In  such  crises 
the  poorest  people,  those  who  earn  their  bread  by  the  sweat 
of  their  brows  and  have  no  margin  of  accumulated  capital, 
always  surfer  the  most.  Above  all  men,  it  is  the  labouring 
man  who  needs  sound  money  and  steady  values.  We  have 
seen  all  these  points  amply  illustrated  since  the  War  of 
Secession.  After  the  War  of  Independence,  when  the  mar 
gin  of  accumulated  capital  was  so  much  smaller,  the  misery 
was  much  greater.  While  the  paper  money  lasted  there  was 
marked  extravagance  in  living,  and  complaints  were  loud 
against  the  speculators,  especially  those  who  operated  in 
bread-stuffs.  Washington  said  he  would  like  to  hang  them 
all  on  a  gallows  higher  than  that  of  Haman  ;  but  they  were, 
after  all,  but  the  inevitable  products  of  this  abnormal  state  of 
things,  and  the  more  guilty  criminals  were  the  demagogues 
who  went  about  preaching  the  doctrine  that  the  poor  man 
needs  cheap  money.  After  the  collapse  of  this  continental 
currency  in  1780,  it  seemed  as  if  there  were  no  money  in 
the  country,  and  at  the  peace  the  renewal  of  trade  with 
England  seemed  at  first  to  make  matters  worse.  The  brisk 


i  ;86 


DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY 


171 


importation  of  sorely  needed  manufactured  goods,  which 
then  began,  would  naturally  have  been  paid  for  in  the  south 
by  indigo,  rice,  and  tobacco,  in  the  middle  states  by  exports 
of  wheat  and  furs,  and  in  New  England  by  the  profits  of  the 
fisheries,  the  shipping,  and  the  West  India  trade.  But  in 


the  southern  and  middle  states  the  necessary  revival  of 
agriculture  could  not  be  effected  in  a  moment,  and  British 
legislation  against  American  shipping  and  the  West  India 
trade  fell  with  crippling  force  upon  New  England.  Conse 
quently,  we  had  little  else  but  specie  with  which  to  pay  for 
imports,  and  the  country  was  soon  drained  of  what  little 
specie  there  was.  In  the  absence  of  a  circulating  medium 
there  was  a  reversion  to  the  practice  of  barter,  and  the 
revival  of  business  was  thus  further  impeded.  Whiskey  in 
North  Carolina,  tobacco  in  Virginia,  did  duty  as  measures 


172  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

of  value  ;  and  Isaiah  Thomas,  editor  of  the  Worcester  "  Spy," 
announced  that  he  would  receive  subscriptions  for  his  paper 
in  salt  pork. 

It  is  worth  while,  in  this  connection,  to  observe  what  this 
specie  was,  the  scarcity  of  which  created  so  much  embarrass 
ment.  [Until  1785  no  national  coinage  was  established,  and 
none  was  issued  until  1793.  English,  French,  Spanish,  and 
German  coins,  of  various  and  uncertain  value,  passed  from 
state  of  the  nand  to  hand.  Beside  the  ninepences  and  four- 
coinage  pence-ha'-pennies,  there  were  bits  and  half-bits, 
pistareens,  picayunes,  and  ftps.  Of  gold  pieces  there  were 
the  Johannes,  or  joe,  the  doubloon,  the  moidore,  and  pistole, 
with  English  and  French  guineas,  carolins,  ducats,  and 
chequins.  Of  coppers  there  were  English  pence  and  half 
pence  and  French  sous ;  and  pennies  were  issued  at  local 
mints  in  Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  New  Jersey, 
and  Pennsylvania.  )  The  English  shilling  had  everywhere 
degenerated  in  value,  but  differently  in  different  localities  ; 
and  among  silver  pieces  the  Spanish  dollar,  from  Louisiana 
and  Cuba,  had  begun  to  supersede  it  as  a  measure  of  value. 
In  New  England  the  shilling  had  sunk  from  nearly  one 
fourth  to  one  sixth  of  a  dollar ;  in  New  York  to  one  eighth  ; 
in  North  Carolina  to  one  tenth.  It  was  partly  for  this 
reason  that  in  devising  a  national  coinage  the  more  uniform 
dollar  was  adopted  as  the  unit.  At  the  same  time  the  decimal 
system  of  division  was  adopted  instead  of  the  cumbrous 
English  system,  and  the  result  was  our  present  admirably 
simple  currency,  which  we  owe  to  Gouverneur  Morris,  aided 
as  to  some  points  by  Thomas  Jefferson.  During  the  period 
of  the  Confederation,  the  chaotic  state  of  the  currency  was  a 
serious  obstacle  to  trade,  and  it  afforded  endless  opportuni 
ties  for  fraud  and  extortion.  Clipping  and  counterfeiting 
were  carried  to  such  lengths  that  every  moderately  cautious 
person,  in  taking  payment  in  hard  cash,  felt  it  necessary  to 
keep  a  small  pair  of  scales  beside  him  and  carefully  weigh 
each  coin,  after  narrowly  scrutinizing  its  stamp  and  decipher 
ing  its  legend. 


ricj-  - 

s 


Or,  Thr  SUorrcta  GAZETTE. 


i  ^^"TuVt^^^S  1 


FACSIMILE    PAGE    OF    THE    MASSACHUSETTS   SPY 


174  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

In  view  of  all  these  complicated  impediments  to  business 
on  the  morrow  of  a  long  and  costly  war,  it  was  not  strange 
that  the  whole  country  was  in  some  measure  pauperized. 
Cost  of  the  The  cost  of  the  war,  estimated  in  cash,  had  been 
about  $i7O,ooo,ooo  —  a  huge  sum  if  we  consider 
the  crrcumstances  of  the  country  at  that  time. 
To  meet  this  crushing  indebtedness  Mr.  Hildreth 
reckons  the  total  amount  raised  by  the  states,  whether  by 
means  of  repudiated  paper  or  of  taxes,  down  to  1784,  as  not 
more  than  $30,000,000.  No  wonder  if  the  issue  of  such 
a  struggle  seemed  quite  hopeless.  In  many  parts  of  the 
country,  by  the  year  1786,  the  payment  of  taxes  had  come 
to  be  regarded  as  an  amiable  eccentricity.  At  one  moment, 
early  in  1782,  there  was  not  a  single  dollar  in  the  treasury. 
That  the  government  had  in  any  way  been  able  to  finish  the 
war,  after  the  downfall  of  its  paper  money,  was  due  to  the 
gigantic  efforts  of  one  great  man,  —  Robert  Morris  of  Penn 
sylvania.  This  statesman  was  born  in  England,  but  he  had 
come  to  Philadelphia  in  his  boyhood,  and  had  amassed  a 
large  fortune,  which  he  devoted  without  stint  to  the  service 
of  his  adopted  country.  Though  opposed  to  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  as  rash  and  premature,  he  had,  neverthe 
less,  signed  his  name  to  that  document,  and  scarcely  any 
one  had  contributed  more  to  the  success  of  the  war.1  It 
'was  he  who  raised  the  money  which  enabled  Washington 
to  complete  the  great  campaign  of  Trenton  and  Princeton. 
In  1781  he  was  made  superintendent  of  finance,  and  by  dint 
of  every  imaginable  device  of  hard-pressed  ingenuity  he 
contrived  to  support  the  brilliant  work  which  began  at  the 
Cowpens  and  ended  at  Yorktown.  He  established  the  Bank 
of  North  America  as  an  instrument  by  which  government 
loans  might  be  negotiated.  Sometimes  his  methods  were 
such  as  doctors  call  heroic,  as  when  he  made  sudden  drafts 

1  Probably  the  winning  of  independence  was  due  more  to  Morris  than 
to  any  other  man  except  Washington.  Copious  data  for  studying  his 
career  are  collected  in  Sumner's  The  Financier  and  Finances  of  the 
American  Revolution,  New  York,  1891,  2  vols. 


i  ;86 


DRIFTING    TOWARD    ANARCHY 


177 


upon  our  ministers  in  Europe  after  the  manner  already  de 
scribed.  In  every  dire  emergency  he  was  Washington's 
chief  reliance.  It  was  of  ill  omen  for  the  fortunes  of  the 
weak  and  disorderly  Confederation  that  in  1784,  after  three 
years  of  herculean  struggle  with 
impossibilities,  this  stout  heart  and 
sagacious  head  could  no  longer 
weather  the  storm.  The  task  of 
creating  wealth  out  of  nothing 
had  become  too  arduous  and  too 
thankless  to  be  endured.  Robert 
Morris  resigned  his  place,  and  it 
was  taken  by  a  congressional  com 
mittee  of  finance,  under  whose 
management  the  disorders  only 
hurried  to  a  crisis. 

By  1 786,  under  the  universal  de 
pression  and  want  of  confidence, 
all  trade  had  well-nigh  stopped, 
and  political  quackery,  with  its 
cheap  and  dirty  remedies,  had  full 
control  of  the  field.  In  the  very 
face  of  miseries  so  plainly  traceable 

to  the  deadly  paper  currency,  it  may  seem  strange  that 
people  should  now  have  begun  to  clamour  for  a  renewal  of 
the  experiment  which  had  worked  so  much  evil.  Yet  so  it 
was.  As  starving  men  are  said  to  dream  of  dainty  ban 
quets,  so  now  a  craze  for  fictitious  wealth  in  the  The 
shape  of  paper  money  ran  like  an  epidemic  through 
the  country.  There  was  a  Barmecide  feast  of  J786 
economic  vagaries  ;  only  now  it  was  the  several  states  that 
sought  to  apply  the  remedy,  each  in  its  own  way.  And 
when  we  have  threaded  the  maze  of  this  rash  legislation,  we 
shall  the  better  understand  that  clause  in  our  federal  con 
stitution  which  forbids  the  making  of  laws  impairing  the 
obligation  of  contracts.  The  events  of  1786  impressed 
upon  men's  minds  more  forcibly  than  ever  the  wretched  and 


SCALES    FOR    WEIGHING    COINS 


i78  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

disorderly  condition  of  the  country,  and  went  far  toward  call 
ing  into  existence  the  needful  popular  sentiment  in  favour  of 
an  overruling  central  government. 

The  disorders  assumed  very  different  forms  in  the  differ 
ent  states,  and  brought  out  a  great  diversity  of  opinion  as  to 
the  causes  of  the  distress  and  the  efficacy  of  the  proposed 
remedies.  Only  two  states  out  of  the  thirteen  —  Connecti 
cut  and  Delaware  —  escaped  the  infection,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  was  only  in  seven  states  that  the  paper  money  party 
prevailed  in  the  legislatures.  North  Carolina  issued  a  large 
amount  of  paper,  and,  in  order  to  get  it  into  circulation  as 
quickly  as  possible,  the  state  government  proceeded  to  buy 
tobacco  with  it,  paying  double  the  specie  value  of  the  to 
bacco.  As  a  natural  consequence,  the  paper  dollar  instantly 
fell  to  seventy  cents,  and  went  on  declining.  In  South 
Agitation  Carolina  an  issue  was  tried  somewhat  more  cau- 
Innd0m*ddie  tiously,  but  the  planters  soon  refused  to  take  the 
states  paper  at  its  face  value.  Coercive  measures  were 
then  attempted.  Planters  and  merchants  were  urged  to 
sign  a  pledge  not  to  discriminate  between  paper  and  gold, 
and  if  any  one  dared  refuse  the  fanatics  forthwith  attempted 
to  make  it  hot  for  him.  A  kind  of  "  Kuklux  "  society  was 
organized  at  Charleston,  known  as  the  "Hint  Club."  Its 
purpose  was  to  hint  to  such  people  that  they  had  better  look 
out.  If  they  did  not  mend  their  ways,  it  was  unnecessary 
to  inform  them  more  explicitly  what  they  might  expect. 
Houses  were  combustible  then  as  now,  and  the  use  of  fire 
arms  was  well  understood.  In  Georgia  the  legislature  itself 
attempted  coercion.  Paper  money  was  made  a  legal  tender 
in  spite  of  strong  opposition,  and  a  law  was  passed  prohibit 
ing  any  planter  or  merchant  from  exporting  any  produce 
without  taking  affidavit  that  he  had  never  refused  to  receive 
this  scrip  at  its  full  face  value.  But  somehow  people  found 
that  the  more  it  was  sought  to  keep  up  the  paper  by  dint  of 
threats  and  forcing  acts,  the  faster  its  value  fell.  Virginia 
had  issued  bills  of  credit  during  the  campaign  of  1781,  but 
it  was  enacted  at  the  same  time  that  they  should  not  be  a 


Obverse 


Reverse 
SPECIMEN    OF    MASSACHUSETTS    CURRENCY 


Obverse 


A  everse 
SPECIMEN    OF    CONNECTICUT    CURRENCY 


I786  DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY  181 

legal  tender  after  the  next  January.  The  influence  of  Wash 
ington,  Madison,  and  Mason  was  effectively  brought  to  bear 
in  favour  of  sound  currency,  and  the  people  of  Virginia  were 
but  slightly  affected  by  the  craze  of  1786.  In  the  autumn 
of  that  year  a  proposition  from  two  counties  for  an  issue  of 
paper  was  defeated  in  the  legislature  by  a  vote  of  eighty-five 
to  seventeen,  and  no  more  was  heard  of  the  matter.  In 
Maryland,  after  a  very  obstinate  fight,  a  rag  money  bill  was 
carried  in  the  house  of  representatives,  but  the  senate  threw 
it  out ;  and  the  measure  was  thus  postponed  until  the  dis 
cussion  over  the  federal  constitution  superseded  it  in  popular 
interest.  Pennsylvania  had  warily  begun  in  May,  1785,  to 
issue  a  million  dollars  in  bills  of  credit,  which  were  not  made 
a  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  private  debts.  They  were 
mainly  loaned  to  farmers  on  mortgage,  and  were  received  by 
the  state  as  an  equivalent  for  specie  in  the  payment  of  taxes. 
By  August,  1786,  even  this  carefully  guarded  paper  had 
fallen  some  twelve  cents  below  par,  —  not  a  bad  showing 
for  such  a  year  as  that.  New  York  moved  somewhat  less 
cautiously.  A  million  dollars  were  issued  in  bills  of  credit 
receivable  for  the  custom-house  duties,  which  were  then 
paid  into  the  state  treasury  ;  and  these  bills  were  made  a 
legal  tender  for  all  money  received  in  lawsuits.  At  the 
same  time  the  New  Jersey  legislature  passed  a  bill  for  issu 
ing  half  a  million  paper  dollars,  to  be  a  legal  tender  in  all 
business  transactions.  The  bill  was  vetoed  by  the  governor 
in  council.  The  aged  Governor  Livingston  was  greatly  re 
spected  by  the  people  ;  and  so  the  mob  at  Elizabethtown, 
which  had  duly  planted  a  stake  and  dragged  his  effigy  up 
to  it,  refrained  from  inflicting  the  last  indignities  upon  the 
image,  and  burned  that  of  one  of  the  members  of  the  council 
instead.  At  the  next  session  the  governor  yielded,  and  the 
rag  money  was  issued.  But  an  unforeseen  difficulty  arose. 
Most  of  the  dealings  of  New  Jersey  people  were  in  the  cities 
of  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  in  both  cities  the  mer 
chants  refused  their  paper,  so  that  it  speedily  became  worth 
less. 


1 82  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

The  business  of  exchange  was  thus  fast  getting  into  hope 
less  confusion.  It  has  been  said  of  Bradshaw's  Railway 
Guide,  the  indispensable  companion  of  the  traveller  in  Eng 
land,  that  no  man  can  study  it  for  an  hour  without  qualifying 
himself  for  a  lunatic  asylum.  But  Bradshaw  is  pellucid 
clearness  compared  with  the  American  tables  of  exchange 
in  1786,  with  their  medley  of  dollars  and  shillings,  moidores, 
and  pistareens.  The  addition  of  half  a  dozen  different 
kinds  of  paper  created  such  a  labyrinth  as  no  human  intel 
lect  could  explore.  No  wonder  that  men  were  counted  wise 
who  preferred  to  take  whiskey  and  pork  instead.  Nobody 
who  had  a  yard  of  cloth  to  sell  could  tell  how  much  it  was 
worth.  But  even  worse  than  all  this  was  the  swift  and 
certain  renewal  of  bankruptcy  which  so  many  states  were 
preparing  for  themselves. 

Nowhere  did  the  warning  come  so  quickly  or  so  sharply  as 
in  New  England.  Connecticut,  indeed,  as  already  observed, 
came  off  scot-free.  She  had  issued  a  little  paper  money 
soon  after  the  battle  of  Lexington,  but  had  stopped  it  about 
the  time  of  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne.  In  1780  she  had 
wisely  and  summarily  adjusted  all  relations  between  debtor 
and  creditor,  and  the  crisis  of  1 786  found  her  people  poor 
enough,  no  doubt,  but  able  to  wait  for  better  times  and 
indisposed  to  adopt  violent  remedies.  It  was  far  otherwise 
in  Rhode  Island  and  Massachusetts.  These  were 

Distress  .  .   . 

in  New  preeminently  the  maritime  states  of  the  Union, 
and  upon  them  the  blows  aimed  by  England  at 
American  commerce  had  fallen  most  severely.  It  was  these 
two  maritime  states  that  suffered  most  from  the  cutting 
down  of  the  carrying  trade  and  the  restriction  of  intercourse 
with  the  West  Indies.  These  things  worked  injury  to  ship 
building,  to  the  exports  of  lumber  and  oil  and  salted  fish, 
even  to  the  manufacture  of  Medford  rum.  Nowhere  had 
the  normal  machinery  of  business  been  thrown  out  of  gear 
so  extensively  as  in  these  two  states,  and  in  Rhode  Island 
there  was  the  added  disturbance  due  to  a  prolonged  occupa 
tion  by  the  enemy's  troops.  Nowhere,  perhaps,  was  there  a 


Obverse 


S--TA-TE-  o  F  v;-N;E  W-n;:Y 


Ctffc'R ESC  Y> 


I    DG'LLARS. 


n 

I  m^ 


Reverse 
SPECIMEN    OF    NEW  YORK   CURRENCY 


ONE   EIGHTH   OF  A  DOLLAR, 
BILL  {lull  paf«  current 


"":*"ti^-,~"       •••:"•':•;••;";          w? 
;«    —     ia  ail  Payments  m  this  Colony, 

'!  tar   ONE  SHILLING,    (be'f;g  ecyati!  ^S, 
^  to  One  Eighth   of  a    Spatti/,  Mtiicd  ffijfj 

the  Value    thereof  in  &iii\%^vi 
GcIJ    or   Silver,     according    to    the  Ife     .        r 
Kcloiut;un    of  the  Provi^cul  Con-  tfljj  T; 
i^iels  of  New-Xork,    en   tlic   Fifth  j^^« 
Day  of  March,  1.776. 


Reverse 
SPECIMEN    OF    NEW   YORK    CURRENCY 


i;86  DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY  185 

larger  proportion  of  the  population  in  debt,  and  in  these 
preeminently  commercial  communities  private  debts  were  a 
heavier  burden  and  involved  more  personal  suffering  than  in 
the  somewhat  patriarchal  system  of  life  in  Virginia  or  South 
Carolina.  In  the  time  of  which  we  are  now  treating,  impris 
onment  for  debt  was  common.  High-minded  but  unfortu 
nate  men  were  carried  to  jail,  and  herded  with  thieves  and 
ruffians  in  loathsome  dungeons,  for  the  crime  of  owing  a 
hundred  dollars  which  they  could  not  promptly  pay.  Under 
such  circumstances,  a  commercial  disturbance,  involving 
widespread  debt,  entailed  an  amount  of  personal  suffering 
and  humiliation  of  which,  in  these  kinder  days,  we  can  form 
no  adequate  conception.  It  tended  to  make  the  debtor  an 
outlaw,  ready  to  entertain  schemes  for  the  subversion  of 
society.  In  the  crisis  of  1786,  the  agitation  in  Rhode 
Island  and  Massachusetts  reached  white  heat,  and  things 
were  done  which  alarmed  the  whole  country.  But  the 
course  of  events  was  different  in  the  two  states.  In  Rhode 
Island  the  agitators  obtained  control  of  the  government,  and 
the  result  was  a  paroxysm  of  tyranny.  In  Massachusetts 
the  agitators  failed  to  secure  control  of  the  government,  and 
the  result  was  a  paroxysm  of  rebellion. 

The  debates  over  paper  money  in  the  Rhode  Island  legis 
lature  began  in  1785,  but  the  advocates  of  a  sound  currency 
were  victorious.  These  men  were  roundly  abused  in  the 
newspapers,  and  in  the  next  spring  election  most  of  them 
lost  their  seats.  The  legislature  of  1786  showed  an  over 
whelming  majority  in  favour  of  paper  money.  The  farmers 
from  the  inland  towns  were  unanimous  in  supporting  the 
measure.  They  could  not  see  the  difference  between  the 
state  making  a  dollar  out  of  paper  and  a  dollar  out  of  gold. 
The  idea  that  the  value  did  not  lie  in  the  government  stamp 
they  dismissed  as  an  idle  crotchet,  a  wire-drawn  theory, 
worthy  only  of  "literary  fellows."  What  they  could  see 
was  the  glaring  fact  that  they  had  no  money,  hard  or  soft  ; 
and  they  wanted  something  that  would  satisfy  their  credit 
ors  and  buy  new  gowns  for  their  wives,  whose  raiment  was 


1 86  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

unquestionably  the  worse  for  wear.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  merchants  from  seaports  like  Providence,  Newport,  and 
Bristol  understood  the  difference  between  real  money  and 
the  promissory  notes  of  a  bankrupt  government,  but  they 
were  in  a  hopeless  minority.  Half  a  million  dollars  were 
issued  in  scrip,  to  be  loaned  to  the  farmers  on  a  mortgage 
of  their  real  estate.  No  one  could  obtain  the  scrip  without 
giving  a  mortgage  for  twice  the  amount,  and  it  was  thought 
that  this  security  would  make  it  as  good  as  gold.  But  the 
depreciation  began  instantly.  When  the  worthy  farmers 
went  to  the  store  for  dry  goods  or  sugar,  and  found  the 
prices  rising  with  dreadful  rapidity,  they  were  at  first  aston 
ished,  and  then  enraged.  The  trouble,  as  they  truly  said, 

was  with  the  wicked  merchants,  who  would  not 
money  vie-  take  the  paper  dollars  at  their  face  value.  These 
Rhode  is-  men  were  thus  thwarting  the  government,  and 
!?Kdn;0whe  must  be  punished.  An  act  was  accordingly  hur- 
Ye"mea-  ried  through  the  legislature,  commanding  every 

one  to  take  paper  as  an  equivalent  for  gold,  under 
penalty  of  five  hundred  dollars  fine  and  loss  of  the  right  of 
suffrage.  The  merchants  in  the  cities  thereupon  shut  up 
their  shops.  During  the  summer  of  1786  all  business  was 
at  a  standstill  in  Newport  and  Providence,  except  in  the  bar 
rooms.  There  and  about  the  market-places  men  spent  their 
time  angrily  discussing  politics,  and  scarcely  a  day  passed 
without  street-fights,  which  at  times  grew  into  riots.  In  the 
country,  too,  no  less  than  in  the  cities,  the  goddess  of  dis 
cord  reigned.  The  farmers  determined  to  starve  the  city 
people  into  submission,  and  they  entered  into  an  agreement 
not  to  send  any  produce  into  the  cities  until  the  merchants 
should  open  their  shops  and  begin  selling  their  goods  for 
paper  at  its  face  value.  Not  wishing  to  lose  their  pigs  and 
butter  and  grain,  they  tried  to  dispose  of  them  in  Boston 
and  New  York,  and  in  the  coast  towns  of  Connecticut.  But 
in  all  these  places  their  proceedings  had  awakened  such 
lively  disgust  that  placards  were  posted  in  the  taverns  warn 
ing  purchasers  against  farm  produce  from  Rhode  Island. 


Obcerse 


:orwng  r 


m-i 


SPECIMEN    OF    PENNSYLVANIA   CURRENCY 


fi 


? 


GHT    DOLLARS.       No.    / 

~^HJS  BILL   of  EIGHT  DOLLARS. 
entitle  the  Bearer  hereof  to  receive  GOLD  t)j 


Obverse 


Reverse 
SPECIMEN    OF    MARYLAND    CURRENCY 


1786  DRIFTING'  TOWARD   ANARCHY  189 

Disappointed  in  these  quarters,  the  farmers  threw  away  their 
milk,  used  their  corn  for  fuel,  and  let  their  apples  rot  on  the 
ground,  rather  than  supply  the  detested  merchants.  Food 
grew  scarce  in  Providence  and  Newport,  and  in  the  latter 
city  a  mob  of  sailors  attempted  unsuccessfully  to  storm  the 
provision  stores.  The  farmers  were  threatened  with  armed 
violence.  Town  meetings  were  held  all  over  the  state,  to 
discuss  the  situation,  and  how  long  they  might  have  talked 
to  no  purpose  none  can  say,  when  all  at  once  the  matter  was 
brought  into  court.  A  cabinet-maker  in  Newport  named 
Trevett  went  into  a  meat -market  kept  by  one  John  Weeden, 
and  selecting  a  joint  of  meat,  offered  paper  in  payment. 
Weeden  refused  to  take  the  paper  except  at  a  heavy  dis 
count.  Trevett  went  to  bed  supperless,  and  next  morning 
informed  against  the  obstinate  butcher  for  disobedience  to 
the  forcing  act.  Should  the  court  find  him  guilty,  it  would 
be  a  good  speculation  for  Trevett,  for  half  of  the  five  hun 
dred  dollars  fine  was  to  go  to  the  informer.  Hard-money 
men  feared  lest  the  court  might  prove  subservient  to  the 
legislature,  since  that  body  possessed  the  power  of  removing 
the  five  judges.  The  case  was  tried  in  September  amid 
furious  excitement.  Huge  crowds  gathered  about  the  court 
house  and  far  down  the  street,  screaming  and  cheering  like 
a  crowd  on  the  night  of  a  presidential  election.  The  judges 
were  clear-headed  men,  not  to  be  browbeaten.  They  de 
clared  the  forcing  act  unconstitutional,  and  dismissed  the 
complaint.  Popular  wrath  then  turned  upon  them.  A  spe 
cial  session  of  the  legislature  was  convened,  four  of  the 
t 

judges  were  removed,  and  a  new  forcing  act  was  prepared. 
This  act  provided" that  no  man  could  vote  at  elections  or  hold 
any  office  without  taking  a  test  oath  promising  to  receive 
paper  money  at  par.  But  this  was  going  too  far.  Many 
soft-money  men  were  not  wild  enough  to  support  such  a 
measure  ;  among  the  farmers  there  were  some  who  had 
grown  tired  of  seeing  their  produce  spoiled  on  their  hands  ; 
and  many  of  the  richest  merchants  had  announced  their 
intention  of  moving  out  of  the  state.  The  new  forcing  act 


1 90  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

accordingly  failed  to  pass,  and  presently  the  old  one  was 
repealed.  The  paper  dollar  had  been  issued  in  May  ;  in 
November  it  passed  for  sixteen  cents. 

These  outrageous  proceedings  awakened  disgust  and 
alarm  among  sensible  people  everywhere,  and  Rhode  Island 
was  ruthlessly  reviled  and  made  fun  of.  One  clause  of  the 
forcing  act  had  provided  that  if  a  debtor  should  offer  paper 
to  his  creditor  and  the  creditor  should  refuse  to  take  it  at 
par,  the  debtor  might  carry  his  rag  money  to  court  and  de 
posit  it  with  the  judge;  and  the  judge  must  thereupon 
issue  a  certificate  discharging  the  debt.  The  form  of  cer 
tificate  began  with  the  words  "  Know  Ye,"  and  forthwith 
the  unhappy  little  state  was  nicknamed  Rogues'  Island,  the 
home  of  Know  Ye  men  and  Know  Ye  measures. 

While  scorn  was  thus  poured  out  upon  Rhode  Island, 
much  sympathy  was  felt  for  the  government  of  Massachu 
setts,  which  was  called  upon  thus  early  to  put  down  armed 
rebellion.  The  pressure  of  debt  was  keenly  felt  in  the 
rural  districts  of  Massachusetts.  It  is  estimated  that  the 
private  debts  in  the  state  amounted  to  some 

Rag  money 

defeatedm    $7,ooo,ooo,  and  the  state  s  arrears  to  the  federal 

Massachu 
setts  ;  the      government  amounted  to  some  $7,000,000   more. 

suiection,  Adding  to  these  sums  the  arrears  of  bounties  due 
Aug.  1786-  t0  the  soldiers,  and  the  annual  cost  of  the  state, 

ret>.  1707 

county,  and  town  governments,  there  was  reached 
an  aggregate  equivalent  to  a  tax  of  more  than  $50  on  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  this  population  of  379,000  souls. 
Upon  every  head  of  a  family  the  average  burden  was  some 
$200  at  a  time  when  most  farmers  would  have  thought  such 
a  sum  yearly  a  princely  income.  In  those  days  of  scarcity 
most  of  them  did  not  set  eyes  on  so  much  as  $50  in  the 
course  of  a  year,  and  happy  was  he  who  had  tucked  away 
two  or  three  golden  guineas  or  moidores  in  an  old  stocking, 
and  sewed  up  the  treasure  in  his  straw  mattress  or  hidden 
it  behind  the  bricks  of  the  chimney-piece.  Under  such  cir 
cumstances  the  payment  of  debts  and  taxes  was  out  of  the 
question  ;  and  as  the  same  state  of  things  made  creditors 


1786  DRIFTING    TOWARD    ANARCHY  Igi 

clamorous  and  ugly,  the  courts  were  crowded  with  lawsuits 
The  lawyers  usually  contrived  to  get  their  money  by  exact 
ing  retainers  in  advance,  and  the  practice  of  champerty  was 
common,  whereby  the  lawyer  did  his  work  in  consideration 
of  a  percentage  on  the  sum  which  was  at  last  forcibly  col 
lected.  Homesteads  were  sold  for  the  payment  of  fore 
closed  mortgages,  cattle  were  seized  in  distrainer,  and  the 


To  all 

KNOW  Y    ;     Tr        T  . 

^- 

pay  of  July,  at  m  **  °n  ' 

'edged  «ni  me  the 


Shillings   and  Een  J  f  Tf 
in  full^f  *     awful 


and  n 

by  Andrew  ,  Comtek   of  r      * 
of  Providence,  rSni     a?rh   °?^in  the  C 
Common  Pleas,  held^t  P      ^  Inferio^  Court  of 


peas  complied  whhta"ih  in  a!l 
Currency;  and   that  tfec  ^  ^    f  ^°g  fe 
hath  been  legallv  and  ^   i          4ndrew 
Witncfs  my  Hand  at  W      Y'  t°dfied 
I7H6.     ,     ^ 


*  To   all 
NOW 

Exeter 


Greenwich,  in  the  County 
*ull  of  the  Principal  and  Iiu 
gage  Deed,  payable  the 


feww  l>a"     tat  the  ^a^d  Samuel 

P^      r  C°mPllcd   *«li   the    La 

liaft  ha^aK!enC?  •*1andtjwt Jhejfai 

Cnul>! 


I—  _ 

FACSIMILE    OF   A    "  KXOW    YE  "    CERTIFICATE 


192  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

farmer  himself  was  sent  to  jail.  The  smouldering  fires  of 
wrath  thus  kindled  found  expression  in  curses  aimed  at 
lawyers,  judges,  and  merchants.  The  wicked  merchants 
bought  foreign  goods  and  drained  the  state  of  specie  to  pay 
for  them,  while  they  drank  Madeira  wine  and  dressed  their 
wives  in  fine  velvets  and  laces.  So  said  the  farmers  ;  and 
city  ladies,  far  kinder  than  these  railers  deemed  them, 
formed  clubs,  of  which  the  members  pledged  themselves  to 
wear  homespun,  —  a  poor  palliative  for  the  deep-seated  ills 
of  the  time.  In  such  mood  were  many  of  the  villagers  when 
in  the  summer  of  1786  they  were  overtaken  by  the  craze 
for  paper  money.  At  the  meeting  of  the  legislature  in  May, 
a  petition  came  in  from  Bristol  County,  praying  for  an  issue 
of  paper.  The  petitioners  admitted  that  such  money  was 
sure  to  deteriorate  in  value,  and  they  doubted  the  wisdom 
of  trying  to  keep  it  up  by  forcing  acts.  Instead  of  this 
they  would  have  the  rate  of  its  deterioration  regulated  by 
law,  so  that  a  dollar  might  be  worth  ninety  cents  to-day,  and 
presently  seventy  cents,  and  by  and  by  fifty  cents,  and  so 
on  till  it  should  go  down  to  zero  and  be  thrown  overboard. 
People  would  thus  know  what  to  expect,  and  it  would  be  all 
right.  The  delicious  naivete  of  this  argument  did  not  pre 
vail  with  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts,  and  soft  money 
was  frowned  down  by  a  vote  of  ninety-nine  to  nineteen. 
Then  a  bill  was  brought  in  seeking  to  reestablish  in  legisla 
tion  the  ancient  practice  of  barter,  and  make  horses  and 
cows  legal  tender  for  debts  ;  and  this  bill  was  crushed  by 
eighty-nine  votes  against  thirty-five.  At  the  same  time  this 
legislature  passed  a  bill  to  strengthen  the  federal  govern 
ment  by  a  grant  of  supplementary  funds  to  Congress,  and 
thus  laid  a  further  burden  of  taxes  upon  the  people. 

There  was  an  outburst  of  popular  wrath.  A  convention 
at  Hatfield  in  August  decided  that  the  court  of  common 
pleas  ought  to  be  abolished,  that  no  funds  should  be  granted 
to  Congress,  and  that  paper  money  should  be  issued  at 
once.  Another  convention  at  Lenox  denounced  such  incen 
diary  measures,  approved  of  supporting  the  federal  govern- 


SPECIMEN    OF   SOUTH    CAROLINA    CURRENCY 


cording  to  a&^?& 
paffed  by 


GENUINE    CONTINENTAL    NOTE 


This  BIIL  entitles 
the  Bearer  to  re 
ceive  To  rt 

mil&d 


or 

Cotif  or  dtt'ver 
cefl  ittrto  dS 
tfon  pa  tied  by  6{?/< 


COUNTERFEIT    CONTINENTAL    NOTE 


1786  DRIFTING    TOWARD    ANARCHY  J9S 


OLD    STREET    VIEW    IN    WORCESTER 


merit,  and  declared  that  no  good  could  come  from  the  issue 
of  paper  money.  But  meanwhile  the  angry  farmers  had 
resorted  to  violence.  The  legislature,  they  said,  had  its  sit 
tings  in  Boston,  under  the  influence  of  wicked  lawyers  and 
merchants,  and  thus  could  not  be  expected  to  do  the  will  of 
the  people.  A  cry  went  up  that  henceforth  the  law-makers 
must  sit  in  some  small  inland  town,  where  jealous  eyes 
might  watch  their  proceedings.  Meanwhile  the  lawyers 
must  be  dealt  with ;  and  at  Northampton,  Worcester,  Great 
Barrington,  and  Concord  the  courts  were  broken  up  by 
armed  mobs.  At  Concord  one  Job  Shattuck  brought  sev 
eral  hundred  armed  men  into  the  town  and  surrounded  the 
court-house,  while  in  a  fierce  harangue  he  declared  that  the 
time  had  come  for  wiping  out  all  debts.  "  Yes,"  squeaked  a 
nasal  voice  from  the  crowd,  —  "  yes,  Job,  we  know  all  about 
them  two  farms  you  can't  never  pay  for  !  "  But  this  repar 
tee  did  not  save  the  judges,  who  thought  it  best  to  flee  from 
the  town.  At  first  the  legislature  deemed  it  wise  to  take  a 
lenient  view  of  these  proceedings,  and  it  even  went  so  far  as 
to  promise  to  hold  its  next  session  out  of  Boston.  But  the 
agitation  had  reached  a  point  where  it  could  not  be  stayed. 
In  September  the  supreme  court  was  to  sit  at  Springfield, 
and  Governor  Bowdoin  sent  a  force  of  600  militia  under 


196  THE  CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

General  Shepard  to  protect  it.  They  were  confronted  by 
some  600  insurgents,  under  the  leadership  of  Daniel  Shays. 
This  man  had  been  a  captain  in  the  Continental  army,  and 
in  his  force  were  many  of  the  penniless  veterans  whom 
Gates  would  fain  have  incited  to  rebellion  at  Newburgh. 
Shays  seems  to  have  done  what  he  could  to  restrain  his 
men  from  violence,  but  he  was  a  poor  creature,  wanting 
alike  in  courage  and  good  faith.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
militia  were  lacking  in  spirit.  After  a  disorderly  parley, 
with  much  cursing  and  swearing,  they  beat  a  retreat,  and  the 
court  was  prevented  from  sitting.  Fresh  riots  followed  at 
Worcester  and  Concord.  A  regiment  of  cavalry,  sent  out 
by  the  governor,  scoured  Middlesex  County,  and,  after  a 
short  fight  in  the  woods  near  Groton,  captured  Job  Shat- 
tuck  and  dispersed  his  men.  But  this  only  exasperated  the 
insurgents.  They  assembled  in  Worcester  to  the  number 
of  1,200  or  more,  where  they  lived  for  two  months  at  free 
quarters,  while  Shays  organized  and  drilled  them. 

Meanwhile  the  habeas  corpus  act  was  suspended  for  eight 
months,  and  Governor  Bowdoin  called  out  an  army  of  4,400 
men,  who  were  placed  under  command  of  General  Lincoln. 
As  the  state  treasury  was  nearly  empty,  some  wealthy 
gentlemen  in  Boston  subscribed  the  money  needed  for  equip 
ping  these  troops,  and  about  the  middle  of  January,  1787, 
they  were  collected  at  Worcester.  The  rebels  had  behaved 
shamefully,  burning  barns  and  seizing  all  the  plunder  they 
could  lay  hands  on.  As  their  numbers  increased  they  found 
their  military  stores  inadequate,  and  accordingly  they 
marched  upon  Springfield,  with  the  intent  to  capture  the 
federal  arsenal  there,  and  provide  themselves  with  muskets 
and  cannon.  General  Shepard  held  Springfield  with  1,200 
men,  and  on  the  25th  of  January  Shays  attacked  him  with  a 
force  of  somewhat  more  than  2,000,  hoping  to  crush  him  and 
seize  the  arsenal  before  Lincoln  could  come  to  the  rescue. 
But  his  plan  of  attack  was  faulty,  and  as  soon  as  his  men 
began  falling  under  Shepard' s  fire  a  panic  seized  them,  and 
they  retreated  in  disorder  to  Ludlow,  and  then  to  Amherst, 


1787  DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY  197 

setting  fire  to  houses  and  robbing  the  inhabitants.  On  the 
approach  of  Lincoln's  army,  three  days  later,  Shays  The  insur- 
retreated  to  Pelham,  and  planted  his  forces  on  two  p^^/j^ 
steep  hills  protected  at  the  bottom  by  huge  snow-  state  troops 
drifts.  Lincoln  advanced  to  Hadley  and  sought  to  open 
negotiations  with  the  rebels.  They  were  reminded  that  a 
contest  with  the  state  government  was  hopeless,  and  that 
they  had  already  incurred  the  penalty  of  death ;  but  if  they 


HOUSE    IN    PETERSHAM    WHERE   SHAYS    WAS   CAPTURED 

would  now  lay  down  their  arms  and  go  home,  a  free  pardon 
could  be  obtained  for  them.  Shays  seemed  willing  to  yield, 
and  Saturday,  the  3d  of  February,  was  appointed  for  a  con 
ference  between  some  of  the  leading  rebels  and  some  of  the 
officers.  But  this  was  only  a  stratagem.  During  the  confer 
ence  Shays  decamped  and  marched  his  men  through  Prescott 
and  North  Dana  to  Petersham.  Toward  nightfall  the  trick 
was  discovered,  and  Lincoln  set  his  whole  force  in  motion 
over  the  mountain  ridges  of  Shutesbury  and  New  Salem. 
The  day  had  been  mild,  but  during  the  night  the  thermome 
ter  dropped  below  zero  and  an  icy,  cutting  snow  began  to 
fall.  There  was  great  suffering  during  the  last  ten  miles, 


I98  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

and  indeed  the  whole  march  of  thirty  miles  in  thirteen  hours 
over  steep  and  snow-covered  roads  was  a  worthy  exploit  for 
these  veterans  of  the  Revolution.  Shays  and  his  men  had 
not  looked  for  such  a  display  of  energy,  and  as  they  were 
getting  their  breakfast  on  Sunday  morning  at  Petersham 
they  were  taken  by  surprise.  A  few  minutes  sufficed  to 
scatter  them  in  flight.  A  hundred  and  fifty,  including  Shays 
himself,  were  taken  prisoners.  The  rest  fled  in  all  direc 
tions,  most  of  them  to  Athol  and  Northfield,  whence  they 
made  their  way  into  Vermont.  General  Lincoln  then 
marched  his  troops  into  the  mountains  of  Berkshire,  where 
disturbances  still  continued.  On  the  26th  of  February  one 
Captain  Hamlin,  with  several  hundred  insurgents,  plundered 
the  town  of  Stockbridge  and  carried  off  the  leading  citizens 
as  hostages.  He  was  pursued  as  far  as  Sheffield,  defeated 
there  in  a  sharp  skirmish,  with  a  loss  of  some  thirty  in  killed 
and  wounded,  and  his  troops  scattered.  This  put  an  end  to 
the  insurrection  in  Massachusetts. 

During  the  autumn  similar  disturbances  had  occurred  in 

the  states  to  the  northward.     At  Exeter  in  New  Hampshire 

and   at  Windsor  and  Rutland  in  Vermont  the  courts  had 

been  broken  up  by  armed  mobs,  and  at  Rutland  there  had 

,   been  bloodshed.     When  the  Shays  rebellion  was 

Conduct  of  * 

neighbour-  put  down,  Governor  Bowdoin  requested  the  neigh 
bouring  states  to  lend  their  aid  in  bringing  the 
insurgents  to  justice,  and  all  complied  with  the  request 
except  Vermont  and  Rhode  Island.  The  legislature  of 
Rhode  Island  sympathized  with  the  rebels,  and  refused  to 
allow  the  governor  to  issue  a  warrant  for  their  arrest.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  governor  of  Vermont  issued  a  proclama 
tion  out  of  courtesy  toward  Massachusetts,  but  he  caused  it 
to  be  understood  that  this  was  but  an  empty  form,  as  the 
state  of  Vermont  could  not  afford  to  discourage  immigration  ! 
A  feeling  of  compassion  for  the  insurgents  was  widely 
spread  in  Massachusetts.  In  March  the  leaders  were  tried, 
and  fourteen  were  convicted  of  treason  and  sentenced  to 
death  ;  but  Governor  Bowdoin,  whose  term  was  about  to 


Commonwealth  of  Maflachufetts. 

By  His  EXCELLENCY 

JamesBowdoin5Elq. 

GOVERNOUR    OF    THE  C  O  M  M  O  N  W  E  A  L  T  H  OF 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

A   Proclamation* 

WHEREAS  by  an  AftT  pafled  the  fixteenth  ofFcbruary  infant, 
entitled,  "  An  A£t  defcribing  the  difqualifkations,  to 'which  perfocs 
{hallbeiiibjected,  which  have  been,  or  may  be  guilty  of  Treafon»or  giv- 
jng  aid  or  fupport  to  the  prefent  Rebellion,  and  to  whom  a  pardon  may  be  ex 
tended,"  the  General  Court  have  eftablifhed  and  made  known  the  conditions 
and  difqualifications,  upon  which  pardon  and  indemnity  to  certain  offenders, 
defcribed  in  the  faid  Aft,  fliall  be  offered  and  given  ;  and  have  authorized  and 
empowered  the  Governgur,  in  the  name  of  the  General  Cqurt.  to  promife  to 
fuch  offenders  fuch  conditional  pardon  and  indemnity  : 

I  HAVE  thought  fit,  by  virtue  of  the  authority  vcftcd 

in  me  by  the  faid  Adi:,  to  iflue  this  Proclamation,  hereby  prcmifmg  pardon 
arid  indemnity  to  all  offenders  within  the  defcription  alorefaid,  who  are  citizens 
of  this  Srate  ;  under  fuch  reftric"Hons,  conditions  and  difqualifkaticns,*  as  arc 
mentioned  in  the  faid  Adi  .  provided  they  comply  with  the  terms  and  condi 
tions  thereof,  on  or  before  the  twenty-rirft  day  of  March  next./ 

C  IV  E  N  at  the  Council  Chamber  in  Boflon,  th'u  Seventeenth  Day  of  February,  in  the  Ttar 
<>f  our  LORD  One  Thoufind  Seven  Hundred  and  Eighty  Seven,  and  in  the  Eleventh  Ttar 
tfthe  Independence  of  the  United  Statei  oj  AMERICA. 

JAMES      BOWDOIN. 

By    His    Excellency's    Command, 

JOHN     AVERY,  jun.  Secretary. 

BOSTON  :     Fruited  by  ADAMS  &  NOURSE.  Printcrt  to  tho    GENERAL  COURT 


200  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

expire,  granted  a  reprieve  for  a  few  weeks.  At  the  annual 
election  in  April  the  candidates  for  the  governorship  were 
Bowdoin  and  Hancock,  and  it  was  generally  believed  that 
the  latter  would  be  more  likely  than  the  former  to  pardon 
the  convicted  men.  So  strong  was  this  feeling  that,  although 
much  gratitude  was  felt  toward  Bowdoin,  to  whose  energetic 
measures  the  prompt  suppression  of  the  rebellion  was  due, 
Hancock  obtained  a  large  majority.  When  the  question  of 
a  pardon  came  up  for  discussion,  Samuel  Adams,  who  was 
then  president  of  the  senate,  was  strongly  opposed  to  it,  and 
one  of  his  arguments  was  very  characteristic.  "  In  mon 
archies,"  he  said,  "the  crime  of  treason  and  rebellion  may 
admit  of  being  pardoned  or  lightly  punished ;  but  the  man 
who  dares  to  rebel  against  the  laws  of  a  republic  ought  to 
suffer  death."  This  was  Adams's  sensitive  point.  He 
wanted  the  whole  world  to  realize  that  the  rule  of  a  republic 
is  a  rule  of  law  and  order,  and  that  liberty  does  not  mean 
license.  But  in  spite  of  this  view,  for  which  there  was 
much  to  be  said,  the  clemency  of  the  American  tempera 
ment  prevailed,  and  Governor  Hancock  pardoned  all  the 
prisoners. 

Nothing  in  the  history  of  these  disturbances  is  more 
instructive  than  the  light  incidentally  thrown  upon  the  rela 
tions  between  Congress  and  the  state  government.  Just 
before  the  news  of  the  rout  at  Petersham,  Samuel  Adams  had 
proposed  in  the  senate  that  the  governor  should  be  requested 
to  write  to  Congress  and  inform  that  body  of  what  was 
going  on  in  Massachusetts,  stating  that  "  although  the  legis 
lature  are  firmly  persuaded  that  ...  in  all  probability  they 
will  be  able  speedily  and  effectively  to  suppress  the  rebellion, 
yet,  if  any  unforeseen  event  should  take  place  which  may 
frustrate  the  measures  of  government,  they  rely  upon  such 
support  from  the  United  States  as  is  expressly  and  solemnly 
stipulated  by  the  articles  of  confederation."  A  resolution 
to  this  effect  was  carried  in  the  senate,  but  defeated  in  the 
house  through  the  influence  of  western  county  members  in 
sympathy  with  the  insurgents  ;  and  incredible  as  it  may 


1787  DRIFTING   TOWARD    ANARCHY  201 

seem,  the  argument  was  freely  used  that  it  was  incompatible 
with  the  dignity  of  Massachusetts  to  allow  United  States 
troops  to  set  foot  upon  her  soil.  When  we  reflect  that  the 
arsenal  at  Springfield,  where  the  most  considerable  disturb 
ance  occurred,  was  itself  federal  property,  the  climax  of 
absurdity  might  seem  to  have  been  reached. 


<&Zr*^>3 


It  was  left  for  Congress  itself,  however,  to  cap  that  cli 
max.     The  progress  of  the  insurrection  in  the  autumn  in 
Vermont,  New  Hampshire,  and   Massachusetts,  as  well  as 
the  troubles  in  Rhode  Island,  had  alarmed  the  whole  coun 
try.     It  was  feared  that  the  insurgents  in  these  states  might 
join  forces,  and  in  some  way  kindle  a  flame  that    Con  ^^ 
would  run  through  the   land.     Accordingly  Con-   afraid  to 
gress  in  October  called  upon  the  states  for  a  con 
tinental  force,  but  did  not  dare  to  declare  openly  what  it  was 
to  be  used  for.     It  was  thought  necessary  to  say  that  the 


202  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  iv 

troops  were  wanted  for  an  expedition  against  the  northwest 
ern  Indians  !  National  humiliation  could  go  no  further 
than  such  a  confession,  on  the  part  of  our  central  govern 
ment,  that  it  dared  not  use  force  in  defence  of  those  very 
articles  of  confederation  to  which  it  owed  its  existence. 
Things  had  come  to  such  a  pass  that  people  of  all  shades  of 
opinion  were  beginning  to  agree  upon  one  thing,  —  that 
something  must  be  done,  and  done  quickly. 


CHAPTER   V 

GERMS    OF    NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY 

WHILE  the  events  we  have  heretofore  contemplated 
seemed  to  prophesy  the  speedy  dissolution  and  downfall  of 
the  half-formed  American  Union,  a  series  of  causes,  obscure 
enough  at  first,  but  emerging  gradually  into  distinctness 
and  then  into  prominence,  were  preparing  the  way  for  the 
foundation  of  a  national  sovereignty.  The  growth  of  this 
sovereignty  proceeded  stealthily  along  such  ancient 
lines  of  precedent  as  to  take  ready  hold  of  people's  anationa? 
minds,  although  few,  if  any,  understood  the  full  be^ndthe 
purport  of  what  they  were  doing.  Ever  since  the  Aiiegha- 
days  when  our  English  forefathers  dwelt  in  village 
communities  in  the  forests  of  northern  Germany,  the  idea 
of  a  common  land  or  folkland  —  a  territory  belonging  to 
the  whole  community,  and  upon  which  new  communities 
might  be  organized  by  a  process  analogous  to  what  physiolo 
gists  call  cell-multiplication  —  had  been  perfectly  familiar  to 
everybody.  Townships  budded  from  village  or  parish  folk- 
land  in  Maryland  and  Massachusetts  in  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury,  just  as  they  had  done  in  England  before  the  time  of 
Alfred.  The  critical  period  of  the  Revolution  witnessed  the 
repetition  of  this  process  on  a  gigantic  scale.  It  witnessed 
the  creation  of  a  national  territory  beyond  the  Alleghanies, 

—  an  enormous  folkland  in  which  all  the  thirteen  old  states 
had  a  common  interest,  and  upon  which  new  and  derivative 
communities  were  already  beginning  to  organize  themselves. 
Questions  about  public  lands  are  often  regarded  as  the  driest 
of  historical  deadwood.  Discussions  about  them  in  news 
papers  and  magazines  belong  to  the  class  of  articles  which 

the  general  reader  usually  skips.     Yet  there  is  a  great  deal 


204  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

of  the  philosophy  of  history  wrapped  up  in  this  subject,  and 
it  now  comes  to  confront  us  at  a  most  interesting  moment ; 
for  without  studying  this  creation  of  a  national  domain 
between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Mississippi,  we  cannot 
understand  how  our  Federal  Union  came  to  be  formed. 

When  England  began  to  contend  with  France  and  Spain 
for  the  possession  of  North  America,  she  made  royal  grants 
of  land  upon  this  continent,  in  royal  ignorance  of  its  extent 
and  configuration.  But  until  the  Seven  Years'  War  the 
eastward  and  westward  partitioning  of  these  grants  was 
of  little  practical  consequence ;  for  English  dominion  was 
bounded  by  the  Alleghanies,  and  everything  beyond  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  French.  In  that  most  momentous  war 
the  genius  of  the  elder  Pitt  won  the  region  east  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  for  men  of  English  race,  while  the  vast  territory 
of  Louisiana,  beyond,  passed  under  the  control  of  Spain. 
During  the  Revolutionary  War,  in  a  series  of  romantic  expe 
ditions,  the  state  of  Virginia  took  military  possession  of  a 
great  part  of  the  wilderness  east  of  the  Mississippi,  founding 
towns  in  the  Ohio  and  Cumberland  valleys,  and  occupying 
with  garrisons  of  her  state  militia  the  posts  at  Cahokia, 
Kaskaskia,  and  Vincennes.  We  have  seen  how,  through  the 
skill  of  our  commissioners  at  Paris,  this  noble  country  was 
Conflicting  secured  for  the  Americans  in  the  treaty  of  1783, 
thewestem  m  spite  of  the  reluctance  of  France  and  the  hos- 
territory  tiiity  of  Spain.  Throughout  the  Revolutionary 
War  the  Americans  claimed  the  territory  as  part  of  the 
United  States  ;  but  when  once  it  passed  from  under  the 
control  of  Great  Britain,  into  whose  hands  did  it  go  ?  To 
whom  did  it  belong  ?  To  this  question  there  were  various 
and  conflicting  answers.  North  Carolina,  indeed,  had  already 
taken  possession  of  what  was  afterward  called  Tennessee, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  Virginia  had  annexed  Ken 
tucky.  As  to  these  points  there  could  be  little  or  no  dis 
pute.  But  with  the  territory  north  of  the  Ohio  River  it  was 
very  different.  Four  states  laid  claim  either  to  the  whole  or 
to  parts  of  this  territory,  and  these  claims  were  not  simply 
conflicting,  but  irreconcilable. 


1777-85      GERMS   OF   NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY  207 

of  October,  1777,  just  two  days  before  Burgoyne's  surren 
der,  that  this  path-breaking  idea  first  found  expression  in 
Congress.  The  articles  of  confederation  were  then  just 
about  to  be  presented  to  the  several  states  to  be  ratified, 
and  the  question  arose  as  to  how  the  conflicting  western 
claims  should  be  settled.  A  motion  was  then  made  that 
"  the  United  States  in  Congress  assembled  shall  have  the 
sole  and  exclusive  right  and  power  to  ascertain  and  fix  the 
western  boundary  of  such  states  as  claim  to  the  Mississippi, 
and  lay  out  the  land  beyond  the  boundary  so  ascer 
tained  into  separate  and  independent  states,  from  time  to 
time,  as  the  numbers  and  circumstances  of  the  people  may 
require."  To  carry  out  such  a  motion,  it  would  be  neces 
sary  for  the  four  claimant  states  to  surrender  their  claims 
into  the  hands  of  the  United  States,  and  thus  create  a 
domain  which  should  be  owned  by  the  confederacy  in  com 
mon.  So  bold  a  step  towards  centralization  found  no  favour 
at  the  time.  No  other  state  but  Maryland  voted  for  it. 

But  Maryland's  course  was  well  considered  :  she  pursued 
it  resolutely,  and  was  rewarded  with  complete  success.  By 
February,  1779,  all  the  other  states  had  ratified  the  articles 
of  confederation.  In  the  following  May,  Maryland  declared 
that  she  would  not  ratify  the  articles  until  she  should 
receive  some  definite  assurance  that  the  northwestern  terri 
tory  should  become  the  common  property  of  the  United 
States,  "  subject  to  be  parcelled  out  by  Congress  into  free, 
convenient,  and  independent  governments."  The  question, 
thus  boldly  brought  into  the  foreground,  was  earnestly  dis 
cussed  in  Congress  and  in  the  state  legislatures,  until  in 
February,  1780,  partly  through  the  influence  of  General 
Schuyler,  New  York  decided  to  cede  all  her  claims  The  ^ 
to  the  western  lands.  This  act  of  New  York  set  erai  states 
things  in  motion,  so  that  in  September  Congress  claims  hT 


recommended  to  all  states  having  western  claims 

to  cede  them  to  the  United  States.     In  October,    St*tes> 

1700—05 

Congress,  still  pursuing  the  Maryland  idea,  went 

farther,  and  declared  that  all  such  lands  as  might  be  ceded 


208  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

should  be  sold  in  lots  to  immigrants  and  the  money  used  for 
federal  purposes,  and  that  in  due  season  distinct  states 
should  be  formed  there,  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union, 
with  the  same  rights  of  sovereignty  as  the  original  thirteen 
states.  As  an  inducement  to  Virginia,  it  was  further  pro 
vided  that  any  state  which  had  incurred  expense  during  the 
war  in  defending  its  western  possessions  should  receive  com 
pensation.  To  this  general  invitation  Connecticut  immedi 
ately  responded  by  offering  to  cede  everything  to  which  she 
laid  claim,  except  3,250,000  acres  on  the  southern  shore  of 
Lake  Erie,  which  she  wished  to  reserve  for  educational  pur 
poses.  Washington  disapproved  of  this  reservation,  but  it 
was  accepted  by  Congress,  though  the  business  was  not 
completed  until  1786.  This  part  of  the  state  of  Ohio  is 
still  commonly  spoken  of  as  the  "Connecticut  Reserve,"  or 
"Western  Reserve."  Half  a  million  acres,  known  as  "  Fire 
Lands,"  were  given  to  citizens  of  Connecticut  whose  pro 
perty  had  been  destroyed  in  the  British  raids  that  set  fire 
to  her  coast  towns,  and  the  rest  were  afterward  sold  for 
$1,200,000,  in  aid  of  schools  and  colleges. 

In  January,  1781,  Virginia  offered  to  surrender  all  the 
territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  provided  that  Congress 
would  guarantee  her  in  the  possession  of  Kentucky.  This 
gave  rise  to  a  discussion  which  lasted  nearly  three  years, 
until  Virginia  withdrew  her  proviso  and  made  the  cession 
absolute.  It  was  accepted  by  Congress  on  the  ist  of  March, 
1784,  and  on  the  iQth  of  April,  in  the  following  year,  — the 
tenth  anniversary  of  Lexington,  —  Massachusetts  surren 
dered  her  claims  ;  and  the  whole  northwestern  territory  — 
the  area  of  the  great  states  of  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  and  Ohio  (excepting  the  Connecticut  Reserve) l  - 
thus  became  the  common  property  of  the  half-formed  nation. 
Maryland,  however,  did  not  wait  for  this.  As  soon  as  New 
York  and  Virginia  had  become  thoroughy  committed  to  the 
movement,  she  ratified  the  articles  of  confederation,  which 
thus  went  into  operation  on  the  ist  of  March,  1781. 
1  This  was  surrendered  to  the  United  States  in  1800. 


__C  O  N  N  E  C\T  I  C  U  T 

E  !S  TERN       IRES/ERVE 

"*"]     1  7  8  6  - 


1777-85      GERMS    OF   NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY  209 

This  acquisition  of  a  common  territory  speedily  led  to 
results  not  at  all  contemplated  in  the  theory  of  union  upon 
which  the  articles  of  confederation  were  based.  It  led  to 
"  the  exercise  of  national  sovereignty  in  the  sense  of  eminent 
domain,"  as  shown  in  the  ordinances  of  1784  and  1787,  and 
prepared  men's  minds  for  the  work  of  the  Federal  Conven 
tion.  Great  credit  is  due  to  Maryland  for  her  resolute 
course  in  setting  in  motion  this  train  of  events.  It  aroused 
fierce  indignation  at  the  time,  as  to  many  people  it  looked 
unfriendly  to  the  Union.  Some  hot-heads  were  even  heard 
to  say  that  if  Maryland  should  persist  any  longer  in  her 
refusal  to  join  the  confederation,  she  ought  to  be  summarily 
divided  up  between  the  neighbouring  states,  and  her  name 
erased  from  the  map.  But  the  brave  little  state  had  earned 
a  better  fate  than  that  of  Poland.  When  we  have  come  to 
trace  out  the  results  of  her  action,  we  shall  see  that  just  as 
it  was  Massachusetts  that  took  the  decisive  step  in  bringing 
on  the  Revolutionary  War  when  she  threw  the  tea  into 
Boston  harbour,  so  it  was  Maryland  that,  by  leading  the 
way  toward  the  creation  of  a  national  domain,  laid  the  corner 
stone  of  our  Federal  Union.  Equal  credit  must  be  given  to 
Virginia  for  her  magnanimity  in  making  the  desired  surren 
der.  It  was  New  York,  indeed,  that  set  the  praiseworthy 
example ;  but  New  York,  after  all,  surrendered  only  a 
shadowy  claim,  whereas  Virginia  gave  up  a  magnificent  and 
princely  territory  of  which  she  was  actually  in  pos-  Ma  nan 
session.  She  might  have  held  back  and  made  imityof 
endless  trouble,  just  as,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Revolution,  she  might  have  refused  to  make  common  cause 
with  Massachusetts  ;  but  in  both  instances  her  leading 
statesmen  showed  a  far-sighted  wisdom  and  a  breadth  of 
patriotism  for  which  no  words  of  praise  can  be  too  strong. 
In  the  later  instance,  as  in  the  earlier,  Thomas  Jefferson 
played  an  important  part.  He,  who  in  after  years,  as  presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  was  destined,  by  the  purchase 
of  Louisiana  and  the  exploration  of  Oregon,  to  carry  our 
western  frontier  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  had,  in  1779, 


210  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

done  more  than  any  one  else  to  support  the  romantic  cam 
paign  in  which  General  Clark  had  taken  possession  of  the 
country  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Mississippi.  He 
had  much  to  do  with  the  generous  policy  which  gave  up  the 
greater  part  of  that  country  for  a  national  domain,  and  on 
the  very  day  on  which  the  act  of  cession  was  completed 
he  presented  to  Congress  a  remarkable  plan  for  the  govern 
ment  of  the  new  territory,  which  was  only  partially  success 
ful  because  it  attempted  too  much,  but  the  results  of  which 
were  in  many  ways  notable. 

In  this  plan,  known  as  the  Ordinance  of  1784,  Jefferson 

proposed  to  divide  the  northwestern  territory  into  ten  states, 

or  just  twice  as  many  as  have  actually  grown  out  of  it.     In 

each  of   these   states  the  settlers  might  establish  a  local 

government,  under  the  authority  of  Congress  ;  and 

Jefferson  .  . 

proposes  a  when  in  any  one  of  them  the  population  should 
government  come  to  equal  that  of  the  least  populous  of  the 
northwest-  origmal  states,  it  might  be  admitted  into  the  Union 
emterri-  by  the  consent  of  nine  states  in  Congress.  The 
new  states  were  to  have  universal  suffrage  ;  they 
must  have  republican  forms  of  government ;  they  must  pay 
their  shares  of  the  federal  debt ;  they  must  forever  remain  a 
part  of  the  United  States ;  and  after  the  year  1 800  negro 
slavery  must  be  prohibited  within  their  limits.  The  names 
of  these  ten  states  have  afforded  much  amusement  to  Jef 
ferson's  biographers.  In  those  days  the  schoolmaster  was 
abroad  in  the  land  after  a  peculiar  fashion.  Just  as  we  are 
now  in  the  full  tide  of  that  Gothic  revival  which  goes  back 
for  its  beginnings  to  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  as  we  admire  mediae 
val  things,  and  try  to  build  our  houses  after  old  English 
models,  and  prefer  words  of  what  people  call  "  Saxon " 
origin,  and  name  our  children  Roland  and  Herbert,  or  Edith 
and  Winifred,  so  our  great-grandfathers  lived  in  a  time  of 
classical  revival.  They  were  always  looking  for  precedents 
in  Greek  and  Roman  history ;  they  were  just  beginning  to 
try  to  make  their  wooden  houses  look  like  temples,  with 
Doric  columns ;  they  preferred  words  of  Latin  origin  ;  they 


1784 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


JEFFERSON'S  PROPOSED  STATES  IN  THE  NORTHWEST,  1784 

signed  their  pamphlets  "Brutus"  and  "  Lycurgus,"  and  in 
sober  earnest  baptized  their  children  as  Caesar,  or  Marcellus, 
or  Darius.  The  map  of  the  United  States  was  just  about  to 
bloom  forth  with  towns  named  Ithaca  and  Syracuse,  Corinth 
and  Sparta ;  and  on  the  Ohio  River,  opposite  the  mouth  of 
Licking  Creek,  a  city  had  lately  been  founded,  the  name  of 
which  was  truly  portentous.  "  Losantiville  "  was  this  won- 


212  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

derful  compound,  in  which  the  initial  L  stood  for  "  Licking," 
while  os  signified  "mouth,"  anti  "opposite,"  and  mile 
"  town  ;  "  and  the  whole  read  neatly  backwards  as  "  Town- 
opposite-mouth-of-Licking."  In  1790  General  St.  Clair,  then 
governor  of  the  northwest  territory,  changed  this  name  to 
Cincinnati,  in  honor  of  the  military  order  to  which  he 
belonged.  With  such  examples  in  mind,  we  may  see  that 
the  names  of  the  proposed  ten  states,  from  which  the  failure 
of  Jefferson's  ordinance  has  delivered  us,  illustrated  the 
prevalent  taste  of  the  time  rather  than  any  idiosyncrasy  of 
the  man.  The  proposed  names  were  Sylvania,  Michigania, 
Chersonesus,  Assenisipia,  Metropotamia,  Illinoia,  Saratoga, 
Washington,  Polypotamia,  and  Pelisipia. 

It  was  not  the  nomenclature  that  stood  in  the  way  of 
Jefferson's  scheme,  but  the  wholesale  way  in  which  he  tried 
to  deal  with  the  slavery  question.  He  wished  to  hem  in  the 
probable  extension  of  slavery  by  an  impassable  barrier,  and 
accordingly  he  not  only  provided  that  it  should  be 
toeprohib?t  extinguished  in  the  northwestern  territory  after 


^e  year  J  ^°°'  kut  at  tne  same  time  his  anti-slav- 
nationai       ery  ardour  led  him  to  try  to  extend  the  national 

dominion  southward.  He  did  his  best  to  persuade 
the  legislature  of  Virginia  to  crown  its  work  by  giving  up 
Kentucky  to  the  United  States,  and  he  urged  that  North 
Carolina  and  Georgia  should  also  cede  their  western  terri 
tories.  As  for  South  Carolina,  she  was  shut  in  between 
the  two  neighbouring  states  in  such  wise  that  her  western 
claims  were  vague  and  barren.  Jefferson  would  thus  have 
drawn  a  north-and-south  line  from  Lake  Erie  down  to  the 
Spanish  border  of  the  Floridas,  and  west  of  this  line  he 
would  have  had  all  negro  slavery  end  with  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  policy  of  restricting  slavery,  so  as  to  let  it  die 
a  natural  death  within  a  narrowly  confined  area,  —  the  policy 
to  sustain  which  Lincoln  was  elected  president  in  1860,  — 
was  thus  first  definitely  outlined  by  Jefferson  in  1784.  It 
was  the  policy  of  forbidding  slavery  in  the  national  territory. 
Had  this  policy  succeeded  then,  it  would  have  been  an 


' 


1784  GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY  213 

ounce  of  prevention  worth  many  a  pound  of  cure.  But  it 
failed  because  of  its  largeness,  because  it  had  too  many  ele 
ments  to  deal  with.  For  the  moment,  the  proposal  to  exclude 
slavery  from  the  northwestern  territory  was  defeated.  It 
got  only  six  states  in  its  favour,  where  it  needed  seven.1 
This  defeat,  however,  was  retrieved  three  years  later,  when 
the  famous  Ordinance  of  1787  prohibited  slavery  forever 
from  the  national  territory  north  of  the  Ohio  River.  But 
Jefferson's  scheme  had  not  only  to  deal  with  the  national 
domain  as  it  was,  but  also  to  extend  that  domain  south 
ward  to  Florida  ;  and  in  this  it  failed.  Virginia  could  not 
be  persuaded  to  give  up  Kentucky  until  too  late.  When 
Kentucky  came  into  the  Union,  after  the  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  she  came  as  a  sovereign  state,  with 
all  her  domestic  institutions  in  her  own  hands.  With  the 
western  districts  of  North  Carolina  the  case  was  somewhat 
different,  and  the  story  of  this  region  throws  a  curious  light 
upon  the  affairs  of  that  disorderly  time. 

In  surrendering  her  western  territory,  North  Carolina 
showed  praiseworthy  generosity.  But  the  frontier  settlers 
were  too  numerous  to  be  handed  about  from  one  dominion 
to  another,  without  saying  something  about  it  themselves; 
and  their  action  complicated  the  matter,  until  it  was  too  late 
for  Jefferson's  scheme  to  operate  upon  them.  In  June, 
1784,  North  Carolina  ceded  the  region  since  known  as  Ten 
nessee,  and  allowed  Congress  two  years  in  which  to  accept 
the  grant.  Meanwhile,  her  own  authority  was  to  remain 
supreme  there.  But  the  settlers  grumbled  and  protested. 
Some  of  them  were  sturdy  pioneers  of  the  finest  type,  but 
along  with  these  there  was  a  lawless  population  of  "  white 
trash,"  ancestors  of  the  peculiar  race  of  men  we  find  to-day 

1  "  Ten  states  were  present.  The  4  Eastern  states,  N.  York,  and 
Penns.,  were  for  the  clause.  Jersey  would  have  been  for  it,  but  there 
were  but  two  members,  one  of  whom  was  sick  in  his  chambers.  South 
Carolina,  Maryland,  and  ! Virginia!  voted  against  it.  N.  Carolina 
was  divided,  as  would  have  been  Virginia,  had  not  one  of  its  delegates 
been  sick  in  bed."  Jefferson  to  Madison,  April  25,  1784. 


2i4  THE    CRITICAL  PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

in  rural  districts  of  Missouri  and  Arkansas.  They  were 
the  refuse  of  North  Carolina,  gradually  pushed  westward 
by  the  advance  of  an  orderly  civilization.  Crime  was  rife  in 
the  settlements,  and,  in  the  absence  of  courts,  a  rough-and- 
ready  justice  was  administered  by  vigilance  committees. 
The  Cherokees,  moreover,  were  troublesome  neighbours, 
and  people  lived  in  dread  of  their  tomahawks.  Petitions  had 
again  and  again  gone  up  to  the  legislature,  urging  the  estab 
lishment  of  courts  and  a  militia,  but  had  passed  unheeded, 
and  now  it  seemed  that  the  state  had  withdrawn  her  pro 
tection  entirely.  The  settlers  did  not  wish  to  have  their 
country  made  a  national  domain.  If  their  own  state  could 
not  protect  them,  it  was  quite  clear  to  them  that  Congress 
could  not.  What  was  Congress,  any  way,  but  a  roomful  of 
men  whom  nobody  heeded  ?  So  these  backwoodsmen  held 
a  convention  in  a  log-cabin  at  Jonesborough,  and  seceded 
from  North  Carolina.  They  declared  that  the  counties 
between  the  Bald  Mountains  and  the  Clinch  River  consti 
tuted  an  independent  state,  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of 
Franklin ; l  and  they  went  on  to  frame  a  constitu- 

John  be-  + 

vier,  and      tion  and  elect  a  legislature  with  two    chambers. 

the  state  of  . 

Franklin,  For  governor  they  chose  John  Sevier,  one  of  the 
heroes  of  King's  Mountain,  a  man  of  Huguenot 
ancestry,  and  such  dauntless  nature  that  he  has  been  some 
times  called  the  "lion  of  the  border."  Having  done  all  this, 
the  seceders,  in  spite  of  their  small  respect  for  Congress, 
sent  a  delegate  to  that  body,  requesting  that  the  new  state 
of  Franklin  might  be  admitted  into  the  Union.  Before  this 
business  had  been  completed,  North  Carolina  repealed  her 
act  of  cession,  and  warned  the  backwoodsmen  to  return  to 
their  allegiance.  This  at  once  split  the  new  state  into  two 
factions  :  one  party  wished  to  keep  on  as  they  had  now 
started,  the  other  wished  for  reunion  with  North  Carolina. 

1  The  name  was  given  in  honour  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  An  attempt 
was  made  to  modify  it  to  Frankland  (i.  e.  "  land  of  the  free  "),  but  this 
was  voted  down.  It  is  often  referred  to,  however,  as  the  state  of 
Frankland. 


i;86 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


215 


In  1786  the  one  party  in  each  county  elected  members  to 
represent  them  in  the  North  Carolina  legislature,  while  the 
other  party  elected  members  of  the  legislature  of  Franklin. 
Everywhere  two  sets  of  officers  claimed  authority,  civil 
dudgeon  grew  very  high,  and  pistols  were  freely  used. 
The  agitation  extended  into  the,  neighbouring  counties  of 


Virginia,  where  some  discontented  people  wished  to  secede 
and  join  the  state  of  Franklin.  For  the  next  two  years 
there  was  something  like  civil  war,  until  the  North  Carolina 
party  grew  so  strong  that  Sevier  fled,  and  the  state  of  Frank 
lin  ceased  to  exist.  Sevier  was  arrested  on  a  warrant  for 
high  treason,  but  he  effected  an  escape,  and  after  men's  pas 
sions  had  cooled  down  his  great  services  and  strong  charac 
ter  brought  him  again  to  the  front.  He  sat  in  the  senate 
of  North  Carolina,  and  in  1796,  when  Tennessee  became  a 
state  in  the  Union,  Sevier  was  her  first  governor. 


216  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

These  troubles  show  how  impracticable  was  the  attempt 
to  create  a  national  domain  in  any  part  of  the  country  which 
contained  a  considerable  population.  The  instinct  of  self- 
government  was  too  strong  to  allow  it.  Any  such  population 
would  have  refused  to  submit  to  ordinances  of  Congress. 
To  obey  the  parent  state  or  to  set  up  for  one's  self,  —  these 
were  the  only  alternatives  which  ordinary  men  at  that  time 
could  understand.  Experience  had  not  yet  ripened  their 
minds  for  comprehending  a  temporary  condition  of  semi- 
independence,  such  as  exists  to-day  under  our  territorial 
governments.  The  behaviour  of  these  Tennessee  back 
woodsmen  was  just  what  might  have  been  expected.  The 
land  on  which  they  were  living  was  not  common  land  :  it 
had  been  appropriated  ;  it  belonged  to  them,  and  it  was  for 
them  to  make  laws  for  it.  Such  is  the  lesson  of  the  short 
lived  state  of  Franklin.  It  was  because  she  perceived  that 
similar  feelings  were  at  work  in  Kentucky  that  Virginia  did 
not  Denture  to  loosen  her  grasp  upon  that  state  until  it  was 
fully  organized  and  ready  for  admission  into  the  Union.  It 
was  in  no  such  partly  settled  country  that  Congress  could 
do  such  a  thing  as  carve  out  boundaries  and  prohibit  slavery 
by  an  act  of  national  sovereignty.  There  remained  the 
magnificent  territory  north  of  the  Ohio,  —  an  empire  in 
itself,  as  large  as  the  German  Empire,  with  the  Netherlands 
thrown  in,  —  in  which  the  collective  wisdom  of  the  Ameri 
can  people,  as  represented  in  Congress,  might  autocratically 
shape  the  future ;  for  it  was  still  a  wilderness,  watched  by 
frontier  garrisons,  and  save  for  the  Indians  and  the  trappers 
and  a  few  sleepy  old  French  towns  on  the  eastern  bank  of 
the  Mississippi,  there  were  no  signs  of  human  life  in  all  its 
vast  solitude.  Here,  where  there  was  nobody  to  grumble  or 
secede,  Congress,  in  1787,  proceeded  to  carry  out  the  work 
which  Jefferson  had  outlined  three  years  before. 

It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  immediate  origin  of  the 
famous  Ordinance  of  1787.  At  the  close  of  the  war  General 
Rufus  Putnam,  from  the  mountain  village  of  Rutland  in 
Massachusetts,  sent  to  Congress  an  outline  of  a  plan  for 


1 787 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY 


217 


colonizing  the  region  between  Lake  Erie  and  the  Ohio  with 
veterans  of  the  army,  who  were  well  fitted  to  protect  the 
border  against  Indian  attacks.     The  land  was  to  be  laid  out 
in  townships  six  miles  square,  "  with  large  reserva-       v 
tions  for  the  ministry  and  schools  ;  "  and  by  selling   the  Ohio 
it  to  the  soldiers  at  a  merely  nominal  price,  the 
penniless  Congress   might    obtain   an   income,  and   at  the 
same  time  recognize  their  services  in  the  only  substantial 


way  that  seemed  practicable.  Washington  strongly  favoured 
the  scheme,  but,  in  order  to  carry  it  out,  it  was  necessary  to 
wait  until  the  cession  of  the  territory  by  the  various  claimant 
states  should  be  completed.  After  this  had  been  done,  a 
series  of  treaties  were  made  with  the  Six  Nations,  as  over 
lords,  and  their  vassal  tribes,  the  Wyandots,  Chippewas, 
Ottawas,  Delawares,  and  Shawnees,  whereby  'all  Indian 
claims  to  the  lands  in  question  were  forever  renounced. 
The  matter  was  then  formally  taken  up  by  Holden  Parsons 


218 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  V 


of  Connecticut,  and  Rufus  Putnam,  Manasseh  Cutler,  Win- 
throp  Sargent,  and  others,  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  joint- 
stock  company  was  formed  for  the  purchase  of  lands  on  the 
Ohio  River.  A  large  number  of  settlers  —  old  soldiers  of 
excellent  character,  whom  the  war  had  impoverished  —  were 
ready  to  go  and  take  possession  at  once ;  and  in  its  petition 
the  Ohio  company  asked  for  nothing  better  than  that  its 


RUFUS  PUTNAM'S  HOUSE  AT  RUTLAND,  MASS. 

settlers  should  be  "under  the  immediate  government  of 
Congress  in  such  mode  and  for  such  time  as  Congress  shall 
judge  proper."  Such  a  proposal,  affording  a  means  at  once 
of  replenishing  the  treasury  and  satisfying  the  soldiers,  could 
not  but  be  accepted ;  and  thus  were  laid  the  foundations  of 
a  state  destined  within  a  century  to  equal  in  population  and 
far  surpass  in  wealth  the  whole  Union  as  it  was  at  that  time. 
It  became  necessary  at  once  to  lay  down  certain  general 
principles  of  government  applicable  to  the  northwestern 
territory ;  and  the  result  was  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  which 
was  chiefly  the  work  of  Edward  Carrington  and  Richard 
Henry  Lee  of  Virginia,  and  Nathan  Dane  of  Massachusetts, 
in  committee,  following  the  outlines  of  a  draft  which  is  sup 
posed  to  have  been  made  by  Manasseh  Cutler.  Jefferson 
was  no  longer  on  the  ground,  having  gone  on  his  mission 


GERMS    OF   NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


219 


to  Paris,  but  some  of  the  principles  of  his  proposed  Ordi 
nance  of  1784  were  adopted. 

It  was  provided  that   the  northwestern  territory  should 
ultimately  be  carved  into  states,  not  exceeding  five  in  num 
ber,  and  any  one  of  these  might  be  admitted  into  the  Union 
as  soon  as  its  population  should  reach  60,000.     In  the  mean 
time,  the  whole  territory  was  to  be  governed  by    TheOrdi. 
officers   appointed   by  Congress,  and   required   to   nance  of 
take  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  United  States. 
Under  this  government  there  was  to  be  unqualified  freedom 


of  religious  worship,  and  no  religious  tests  should  be  required 
of  any  public  official.  Intestate  property  should  descend  in 
equal  shares  to  children  of  both  sexes.  Public  schools  were 
to  be  established.  Suffrage  was  not  yet  made  universal,  as 
a  freehold  in  fifty  acres  was  required.  No  law  was  ever  to 
be  made  which  should  impair  the  obligation  of  contracts, 
and  it  was  thoroughly  agreed  that  this  provision  especially 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  V 


covered  and  prohibited  the  issue  of  paper  money.  The 
future  states  to  be  formed  from  this  territory  must  make 
their  laws  conform  to  these  fundamental  principles,  and 
under  no  circumstances  could  any  one  of  them  ever  be 
separated  from  the  Union.  In  such  wise,  the  theory  of 
peaceful  secession  was  condemned  in  advance,  so  far  as  it 
was  possible  for  the  federal  government  to  do  so.  Jefferson's 
principle,  that  slavery  should  not  be  permitted  in  the  national 


MANASSEH    CUTLER'S    BIRTHPLACE    IN    CONNECTICUT 

domain,  was  also  adopted  so  far  as  the  northwest  was  con 
cerned  ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  observe  the  names  of  the 
states  which  were  present  in  Congress  when  this  clause  was 
added  to  the  ordinance.  They  were  Georgia,  the  two 
Carolinas,  Virginia,  Delaware,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  and 
Massachusetts ;  and  the  vote  was  unanimous.  No  one  was 


1787  GERMS    OF   NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY  221 

more  active  in  bringing  about  this  result  than  William 
Grayson  of  Virginia,  who  was  earnestly  supported  by  Lee. 
The  action  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolinia  at  that  time 
need  not  surprise  us.  But  the  movements  in  favour  of 
emancipation  in  these  two  states,  and  the  emancipation  actu 
ally  effected  or  going  on  at  the  north,  had  already  made 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina  extremely  sensitive  about 
slavery  ;  and  their  action  on  this  occasion  can  be  explained 
only  by  supposing  that  they  were  willing  to  yield  a  point  in 
this  remote  territory,  in  order  by  and  by  to  be  able  to  insist 
upon  an  equivalent  in  the  case  of  the  territory  lying  west 
of  Georgia.  Nor  would  they  have  yielded  at  all  had  not  a 
fugitive  slave  law  been  enacted,  providing  that  slaves  escap 
ing  beyond  the  Ohio  should  be  arrested  and  returned  to 
their  owners.  These  arrangements  having  been  made, 
General  St.  Clair  was  appointed  governor  of  the  territory  ; 
surveys  were  made ;  land  was  put  up  for  sale  at  sixty  cents 
per  acre,  payable  in  certificates  of  -the  public  debt  ;  and 
settlers  rapidly  came  in.  The  westward  exodus  from  New 
England  and  Pennsylvania  now  began,  and  only  fourteen 
years  elapsed  before  Ohio,  the  first  of  the  five  states,  was 
admitted  into  the  Union. 

"I  doubt,"  says  Daniel  Webster,  "whether  one  single 
law  of  any  law-giver,  ancient  or  modern,  has  produced  effects 
of  more  distinct,  marked,  and  lasting  character  than  the 
Ordinance  of  1787."  Nothing  could  have  been  more  emphat 
ically  an  exercise  of  national  sovereignty ;  yet,  as  Madison 
said,  while  warmly  commending  the  act,  Congress  did  it 
"  without  the  least  colour  of  constitutional  authority."  The 
ordinance  was  never  submitted  to  the  states  for  ratification. 
The  articles  of  confederation  had  never  contemplated  an 
occasion  for  such  a  peculiar  assertion  of  sovereignty.  "  A 
great  and  independent  fund  of  revenue,"  said  Madison,  "  is 
passing  into  the  hands  of  a  single  body  of  men,  who  can 
raise  troops  to  an  indefinite  number,  and  appropriate  money 
to  their  support  for  an  indefinite  period  of  time.  .  .  .  Yet 
no  blame  has  been  whispered,  no  alarm  has  been  sounded," 


222 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  V 


even  by  men  most  zealous  for  state  rights  and  most  suspi 
cious  of  Congress.  Within  a  few  months  this  argument  was 
to  be  cited  with  telling  effect  against  those  who  hesitated  to 
accept  the  Federal  Constitution  because  of  the  great  powers 
which  it  conferred  upon  the  general  government.  Unless 
you  give  a  government  specific  powers,  commensurate  with 
its  objects,  it  is  liable  on  occasions  of  public  necessity  to 
exercise  powers  which  have  not  been  granted.  Avoid  the 
dreadful  dilemma  between  dissolution  and  usurpation,  urged 
Madison,  by  clothing  the  government  with  powers  that  are 
ample  but  clearly  defined.  In  a  certain  sense,  the  action  of 
Congress  in  1787  was  a  usurpation  of  authority  to  meet  an 
emergency  which  no  one  had  foreseen,  as  in  the  cases  of 
Jefferson's  purchase  of  Louisiana  and  Lincoln's  emancipation 
Theory  of  of  the  slaves.  Each  of  these  instances  marked,  in 
upoifwhich  one  waY  or  another,  a  brilliant  epoch  in  American 
nanc°erwas  historv>  and  in  each  case  the  public  interest  was 
based  so  unmistakable  that  the  people  consented  and 

applauded.  The  theory  upon  which  the  Ordinance  of  1787 
was  based  was  one  which  nobody  could  fail  to  understand, 


WOLF    CREEK    MILLS,    OHIO,    1789 


1787  GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY  223 


CAMPUS    MARTIUS,    MARIETTA,    OHIO 


though  perhaps  no  one  would  then  have  known  just  how  to 
put  it  into  words.  It  was  simply  the  thirteen  states,  through 
their  delegates  in  Congress,  dealing  with  the  unoccupied 
national  domain  as  if  it  were  the  common  land  or  folkland 
of  a  stupendous  township. 

The  vast  importance  of  the  lands  between  the  Alleghanies 
and  the  Mississippi  was  becoming  more  apparent  every  year, 
as  the  westward  movement  of  population  went  on.  But  at 
this  time  their  value  was  much  more  clearly  seen  by  the 
southern  than  by  the  northern  states.  In  the  north  the 
westward  emigration  was  only  just  beginning  to  pass  the 
Alleghanies ;  in  the  south,  as  we  have  seen,  it  had  gone 
beyond  them  several  years  before.  The  southern  states, 
accordingly,  took  a  much  sounder  view  than  the  northern 
states  of  the  importance  to  the  Union  of  the  free  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  River.  The  difference  was  forcibly  illus 
trated  in  the  dispute  with  Spain,  which  came  to  a  crisis  in 
the  summer  of  1786.  It  will  be  remembered  that  by  the 
treaties  which  closed  the  Revolutionary  War  the  provinces 
of  East  and  West  Florida  were  ceded  by  England  to  Spain. 
West  Florida  was  the  region  lying  between  the  Appalachi- 
cola  and  the  Mississippi  rivers,  including  the  southernmost 
portions  of  the  present  states  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi, 


224  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

with  a  bit  of  Louisiana.     By  the  treaty  between  Great  Brit- 
Spain)         ain  and  the  United  States,  the  northern  boundary 

thhersecgre°tf  of  this  Province  was  described  by  the  thirty-first 

artjck  in  parallel  of  latitude ;  but  Spain  denied  the  right  of 

</!  783!  y  these  powers  to  place  the  boundary  so  low.     Her 

lem^and  troops  still  held  Natchez,  and  she  maintained  that 

torsehutnuP  the  boundary  must  be  placed  a  hundred  miles  far- 

the  Missis-  ther  north,   starting   from  the   Mississippi  at  the 

sippi  River  . 

mouth  of  the  Yazoo  River,  near  the  present  site  of 
Vicksburg.  Now  the  treaty  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  contained  a  secret  article,  wherein  it  was 
provided  that  if  England  could  contrive  to  keep  West 
Florida,  instead  of  surrendering  it  to  Spain,  then  the  boun 
dary  should  start  at  the  Yazoo.  This  showed  that  both  Eng 
land  and  the  United  States  were  willing  to  yield  the  one  to 
the  other  a  strip  of  territory  which  both  agreed  in  withhold 
ing  from  Spain.  Presently  the  Spanish  court  got  hold  of 
the  secret  article,  and  there  was  great  indignation.  Here 
was  England  giving  to  the  Americans  a  piece  of  land  which 
she  knew,  and  the  Americans  knew,  was  lately  a  part  of 
West  Florida,  and  therefore  belonged  to  Spain !  Castilian 
grandees  went  to  bed  and  dreamed  of  invincible  armadas. 
Congress  was  promptly  informed  that,  until  this  affair  should 
be  set  right,  the  Americans  need  not  expect  the  Spanish 
government  to  make  any  treaty  of  commerce  with  them; 
and  furthermore,  let  no  American  sloop  or  barge  dare  to 
show  itself  on  the  Mississippi  below  the  Yazoo,  under 
penalty  of  confiscation.  When  these  threats  were  heard  in 
America,  there  was  great  excitement  everywhere,  but  it 
assumed  opposite  phases  in  the  north  and  in  the  south. 
The  merchants  of  New  York  and  Boston  cared  little  more 
about  the  Mississippi  River  than  about  Timbuctoo,  but  they 
were  extremely  anxious  to  see  a  commercial  treaty  concluded 
with  Spain.  On  the  other  hand,  the  backwoodsmen  of 
Kentucky  and  the  state  of  Franklin  cared  nothing  for  the 
trade  on  the  ocean,  but  they  would  not  sit  still  while  their 
corn  and  their  pork  were  confiscated  on  the  way  to  New 


1784  GERMS    OF    NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY  225 


Orleans.  The  people  of  Virginia  sympathized  with  the 
backwoodsmen,  but  her  great  statesmen  realized  the  impor 
tance  of  both  interests  and  the  danger  of  a  conflict  between 
them. 

The  Spanish  envoy,  Gardoqui,  arrived  in  the  summer  of 
1784,   and   had   many  interviews  with  Jay,  who  was   then 
secretary  for  foreign  affairs.     Gardoqui  set  forth    Gardoqui 
that  his  royal  master  was  graciously  pleased  to  deal   and  Jay 
leniently  with  the  Americans,  and  would  confer  one  favour 
upon  them,  but  could  not  confer  two.     He  was  ready  to 


226  THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

enter  into  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  us,  but  not  until  we 
should  have  renounced  all  claim  to  the  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi  River  below  the  Yazoo.  Here  the  Spaniard  was 
inexorable.  A  year  of  weary  argument  passed  by,  and  he 
had  not  budged  an  inch.  At  last,  in  despair,  Jay  advised 
Congress,  for  the  sake  of  the  commercial  treaty,  to  consent 
to  the  closing  of  the  Mississippi,  but  only  for  twenty-five 
years.  As  the  rumour  of  this  went  abroad  among  the  set 
tlements  south  of  the  Ohio,  there  was  an  outburst  of  wrath, 
to  which  an  incident  that  now  occurred  gave  added  viru 
lence.  A  North  Carolinian  trader,  named  Amis,  sailed 
down  the  Mississippi  with  a  cargo  of  pots  and  kettles  and 
barrels  of  flour.  At  Natchez  his  boat  and  his  goods  were 
seized  by  the  Spanish  officers,  and  he  was  left  to  make  his 
way  home  afoot  through  several  hundred  miles  of  wilder 
ness.  The  story  of  his  wrongs  flew  from  one  log-cabin  to 
another,  until  it  reached  the  distant  northwestern  territory. 
In  the  neighbourhood  of  Vincennes  there  were  Spanish 
traders,  and  one  of  them  kept  a  shop  in  the  town.  The 
shop  was  sacked  by  a  band  of  American  soldiers,  and  an 
attempt  was  made  to  incite  the  Indians  to  attack  the  Span 
iards.  Indignation  meetings  were  held  in  Kentucky.  The 
people  threatened  to  send  a  force  of  militia  down  the  river 
and  capture  Natchez  and  New  Orleans  ;  and  a  more  danger 
ous  threat  was  made.  Should  the  northeastern  states  desert 
them  and  adopt  Jay's  suggestion,  they  vowed  they  would 
secede,  and  throw  themselves  upon  Great  Britain  for  protec- 
Threats  of  tion.  On  t^ie  otner  hand,  there  was  great  agitation 
secession  jn  the  seaboard  towns  of  Massachusetts.  They 

in  Ken-  .    J 

tucky  and  were  disgusted  with  the  backwoodsmen  for  making 
England,  such  a  fuss  about  nothing,  and  with  the  people  of 
the  southern  states  for  aiding  and  abetting  them  ; 
and  during  the  turbulent  summer  of  1786,  many  persons 
were  heard  to  declare  that,  in  case  Jay's  suggestion  should 
not  be  adopted,  it  would  be  high  time  for  the  New  England 
states  to  secede  from  the  Union,  and  form  a  confederation  by. 
themselves.  The  situation  was  dangerous  in  the  extreme. 


i;86 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


227 


Had  the  question  been  forced  to  an  issue,  the  southern 
states  would  never  have  seen  their  western  territories  go  and 
offer  themselves  to  Great  Britain.  Sooner  than  that,  they 
would  have  broken  away  from  the  northern  states.  But 


New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  now  came  over  to  the  south 
ern  side,  and  Rhode  Island,  moving  in  her  eccentric  orbit, 
presently  joined  them ;  and  thus  the  treaty  was  postponed 
for  the  present,  and  the  danger  averted. 

This  lamentable  dispute  was  watched  by  Washington 
with  feelings  of  gravest  concern.  From  an  early  age  he 
had  indulged  in  prophetic  dreams  of  the  grandeur  of  the 
coming  civilization  in  America,  and  had  looked  to  the  coun- 


228  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

try  beyond  the  mountains  as  the  field  in  which  the  next 
generation  was  to  find  room  for  expansion.  Few  had  been 
more  efficient  than  he  in  aiding  the  great  scheme  of  Pitt  for 
overthrowing  the  French  power  in  America,  and  he  under 
stood  better  than  most  men  of  his  time  how  much  that 
scheme  implied.  In  his  early  journeys  in  the  wilderness  he 
had  given  especial  attention  to  the  possibilities  of  water  con 
nection  between  the  east  and  west,  and  he  had  bought  for 
himself  and  surveyed  many  extensive  tracts  of  land  beyond 
the  mountains.  The  subject  was  a  favourite  one  with  him, 
and  he  looked  at  it  from  both  a  commercial  and  a  political 
point  of  view.  What  we  most  needed,  he  said  in  1 770,  were 
Washing-  eas7  transit  lines  between  east  and  west,  as  "  the 
ton's  views  channel  of  conveyance  of  the  extensive  and  valu- 

on  the  im-  J 

portanceof   able   trade  of  a  rising    empire."     Just   before  re- 

canals  be-          ..          ,.  ..          .  n        ttr     i  •  it 

tweeneast  signing  his  commission  in  1783,  Washington  had 
and  west  explored  the  route  through  the  Mohawk  Valley, 
afterward  taken  first  by  the  Erie  Canal,  and  then  by  the 
New  York  Central  Railroad,  and  had  prophesied  its  commer 
cial  importance  in  the  present  century.  Soon  after  reaching 
his  home  at  Mount  Vernon,  he  turned  his  attention  to  the 
improvement  of  intercourse  with  the  west  through  the  val 
ley  of  the  Potomac.  The  east  and  west,  he  said,  must  be 
cemented  together  by  interests  in  common  ;  otherwise  they 
will  break  asunder.  Without  commercial  intercourse  they 
will  cease  to  understand  each  other,  and  will  thus  be  ripe 
for  disagreement.  It  is  easy  for  mental  habits,  as  well  as 
merchandise,  to  glide  down  stream,  and  the  connections  of 
the  settlers  beyond  the  mountains  all  centre  in  New  Or 
leans,  which  is  in  the  hands  of  a  foreign  and  hostile  power. 
No  one  can  tell  what  complications  may  arise  from  this, 
argued  Washington  ;  "  let  us  bind  these  people  to  us  by  a 
chain  that  can  never  be  broken  ;  "  and  with  characteristic 
energy  he  set  to  work  at  once  to  establish  that  line  of  com 
munication  that  has  since  grown  into  the  Chesapeake  and 
Ohio  Canal,  and  into  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad. 
During  the  three  years  preceding  the  meeting  of  the  Fed- 


1785  GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY  229 

eral  Convention  he  was  largely  occupied  with  this  work.  In 
1785  he  became  president  of  a  company  for  extending  the 
navigation  of  the  Potomac  and  James  rivers,  and  the  legisla 
ture  of  Virginia  passed  an  act  vesting  him  with  one  hundred 
and  fifty  shares  in  the  stock  of  the  company,  in  order  to 
testify  their  "  sense  of  his  unexampled  merits."  But  Wash 
ington  refused  the  testimonial,  and  declined  to  take  His  far_ 
any  pay  for  his  services,  because  he  wished  to  sighted 

genius  and 

arouse  the  people  to  the  political  importance  of  the   seif-devo- 
undertaking,  and  felt  that  his  words  would  have 
more  weight  if  he  were  known  to  have  no  selfish  interest 
in   it.     His    sole  purpose,    as   he   repeatedly    said,    was   to 
strengthen  the  spirit  of  union  by  cementing  the  eastern  and 
western   regions  together.     At  this  time  he  could  ill  afford 
to  give  his  services  without  pay,  for  his  long  absence  in  war 
time  had  sadly  impaired  his  estate.     But  such  was  Wash 
ington. 

In  order  to   carry  out  the   enterprise  of   extending  the 
navigation  of  the  Potomac,  it  became  necessary  for  the  two 
states  Virginia  and   Maryland  to  act   in  concert ;    Maryland 
and  early  in   1785  a  joint  commission  of  the  two   ^eyir. 
states  met  for  consultation  at  Washington's  house   sinia  re- 

t     ,,  ^   XT  A  •  •  1_  -         Sardingthe 

at  Mount  Vernon.  A  compact  insuring  harmoni-  navigation 
ous  cooperation  was  prepared  by  the  commission-  tomac, 
ers  ;  and  then,  as  Washington's  scheme  involved  I?85 
the  connection  of  the  head  waters  of  the  Potomac  with 
those  of  the  Ohio,  it  was  found  necessary  to  invite  Pennsyl 
vania  to  become  a  party  to  the  compact.  Then  Washington 
took  the  occasion  to  suggest  that  Maryland  and  Virginia, 
while  they  were  about  it,  should  agree  upon  a  uniform  sys 
tem  of  duties  and  other  commercial  regulations,  and  upon 
a  uniform  currency ;  and  these  suggestions  were  sent,  to 
gether  with  the  compact,  to  the  legislatures  of  the  two 
states.  Great  things  were  destined  to  come  from  these 
modest  beginnings.  Just  as  in  the  Yorktown  campaign, 
there  had  come  into  existence  a  multifarious  assemblage  of 
events,  apparently  unconnected  with  one  another,  and  all 


230  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

that  was  needed  was  the  impulse  given  by  Washington's  far- 
sighted  genius  to  set  them  all  at  work,  surging,  swelling, 
and  hurrying  straight  forward  to  a  decisive  result. 

Late  in  1785,  when  the  Virginia  legislature  had  wrangled 
itself  into  imbecility  over  the  question  of  clothing  Congress 
Madison's  with  power  over  trade,  Madison  hit  upon  an  expe- 
Jrte^inLf-  dient-  He  prepared  a  motion  to  the  effect  that 
vance,  1785  commissioners  from  all  the  states  should  hold  a 
meeting,  and  discuss  the  best  method  of  securing  a  uniform 
treatment  of  commercial  questions  ;  but  as  he  was  most  con 
spicuous  among  the  advocates  of  a  more  perfect  union,  he 
was  careful  not  to  present  the  motion  himself.  It  was  made 
by  another  member  —  John  Tyler,  father  of  the  president 
of  that  name,  a  sturdy  champion  of  state  rights,  but  on  this 
particular  question  agreeing  with  Madison.1  The  plan,  how 
ever,  was  "  so  little  acceptable  that  it  was  not  then  persisted 
in,"  and  the  motion  was  laid  on  the  table.  But  after  some 
weeks  it  was  announced  that  Maryland  had  adopted  the 
compact  made  at  Mount  Vernon  concerning  jurisdiction 
over  the  Potomac.  Virginia  instantly  replied  by  adopting  it 
also.  Then  it  was  suggested,  in  the  report  from  Maryland, 
that  Delaware,  as  well  as  Pennsylvania,  ought  to  be  con 
sulted,  since  the  scheme  should  rightly  include  a  canal 
between  the  Delaware  River  and  the  Chesapeake  Bay. 
And  why  not  also  consult  with  these  states  about  a  uniform 
system  of  duties  ?  If  two  states  can  agree  upon  these  mat 
ters,  why  not  four  ?  And  still  further,  said  the  Maryland 
message,  —  dropping  the  weightiest  part  of  the  proposal 
into  a  subordinate  clause,  just  as  women  are  said  to  put  the 
quintessence  of  their  letters  into  the  postscript,  —  might  it 
not  be  well  enough,  if  we  are  going  to  have  such  a  confer 
ence,  to  invite  commissioners  from  all  the  thirteen  states  to 
attend  it  ?  An  informal  discussion  can  hurt  nobody.  The 
conference  of  itself  can  settle  nothing  ;  and  if  four  states 
can  take  part  in  it,  why  not  thirteen  ?  Here  was  the  golden 

1  See  L.  G.  Tyler,  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  Richmond,  1884. 
i.  125-134. 


I786  GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY  231 

opportunity.  The  Madison-Tyler  motion  was  taken  up  from 
the  table  and  carried.  Commissioners  from  all  the  states 
were  invited  to  meet  on  the  first  Monday  of  September, 
1786,  at  Annapolis,— a  safe  place,  far  removed  from  the 
influence  of  that  dread  tyrant,  the  Congress,  and  from 


wicked  centres  of  trade,  such  as  New  York  and  Boston. 
It  was  the  governor  of  Virginia  who  sent  the  invitations.  It 
may  not  amount  to  much,  wrote  Madison  to  Monroe,  but 
"the  expedient  is  better  than  nothing  ;  and,  as  the  recom- 


232  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

mendation  of  additional  powers  to  Congress  is  within  the 
purview  of  the  commission,  it  may  possibly  lead  to  better 
consequences  than  at  first  occur." 

The  seed  dropped  by  Washington  had  fallen  on  fruitful 
soil.  At  first  it  was  to  be  just  a  little  meeting  of  two  or 
three  states  to  talk  about  the  Potomac  River  and  some  pro 
jected  canals,  and  already  it  had  come  to  be  a  meeting  of  all 
the  states  to  discuss  some  uniform  system  of  legislation  on 
Convention  the  subject  of  trade.  This  looked  like  progress, 
S^'sept!10"  yet  wnen  tne  convention  was  gathered  in  the 
ii,  1786  State  House  at  Annapolis,  on  the  nth  of  Septem 
ber,  the  outlook  was  most  discouraging.  Commissioners 
from  Virginia,  Delaware,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and 
New  York  were  present.  Massachusetts  and  New  Hamp 
shire,  Rhode  Island  and  North  Carolina,  had  duly  appointed 
commissioners,  but  they  were  not  there.  It  is  curious  to 
observe  that  Maryland,  which  had  been  so  earnest  in  the 
matter,  had  nevertheless  now  neglected  to  appoint  commis 
sioners  ;  and  no  action  had  been  taken  by  Georgia,  South 
Carolina,  or  Connecticut.  With  only  five  states  represented, 
the  commissioners  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  go  on 
with  their  work.  But  before  adjourning  they  adopted  an 
address,  written  by  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  sent  it  to  all 
the  states.  All  the  commissioners  present  had  been  em 
powered  to  consider  how  far  a  uniform  commercial  system 
might  be  essential  to  the  permanent  harmony  of  the  states. 
But  New  Jersey  had  taken  a  step  in  advance,  and  instructed 
her  delegates  "  to  consider  how  far  a  uniform  system  in  their 
commercial  regulations  and  other  important  'matters  might 
be  necessary  to  the  common  interest  and  permanent  har 
mony  of  the  several  states."  And  other  important  matters, 
—  thus  again  was  the  weightiest  part  of  the  business  rele 
gated  to  a  subordinate  clause.  So  gingerly  was  the  great 
question  —  so  dreaded,  yet  so  inevitable  -  -  approached  ! 
This  reference  to  "  other  matters  "  was  pronounced  by  the 
commissioners  to  be  a  vast  improvement  on  the  original 
plan;  and  Hamilton's  address  now  urged  that  commissioners 


i;86  GERMS    OF    NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY  233 


ANNAPOLIS    STATE    HOUSE 


be  appointed  by  all  the  states,  to  meet  in   convention  at 
Philadelphia  on  the  second  Monday  of  the  follow-    , 

1  J  .    .  Hamilton's 

mg  May,    "  to  devise   such  further  provisions  as   address ; 
shall  appear  to  them  necessary  to  render  the  con-   step  in 
stitution  of  the  federal  government  adequate  to  the   advance 
exigencies  of  the  Union,  and   to   report  to  Congress  such 
an  act  as,  when  agreed  to  by  them,  and  confirmed  by  the 
legislatures    of   every    state,  would    effectually   provide   for 
the  same."     The  report  of  the  commissioners  was  brought 
before  Congress    in    October,   in  the    hope   that   Congress 
would  earnestly  recommend  to  the  several  states  the  course 
of  action  therein  suggested.     But  Nathan  Dane  and  Rufus 
King  of  Massachusetts,  intent  upon  technicalities,  succeeded 
in  preventing  this.     According  to  King,  a  convention  was 
an  irregular  body,  which  had  no  right  to  propose  changes  in 


234  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

the  organic  law  of  the  land,  and  the  state  legislatures  could 
not  properly  confirm  the  acts  of  such  a  body,  or  take  notice 
of  them.  Congress  was  the  only  source  from  which  such 
proposals  could  properly  emanate.  These  arguments  were 
pleasing  to  the  self-love  of  Congress,  and  it  refused  to  sanc 
tion  the  plan  of  the  Annapolis  commissioners. 

In  an  ordinary  season  this  would  perhaps  have  ended  the 


matter,  but  the  winter  of  1786-87  was  not  an  ordinary 
season.  All  the  troubles  above  described  seemed  to  cul 
minate  just  at  this  moment.  The  paper  money  craze  in  so 
many  of  the  states,  the  shameful  deeds  of  Rhode  Island,  the 
riots  in  Vermont  and  New  Hamsphire,  the  Shays  rebellion  in 
Massachusetts,  the  dispute  with  Spain,  and  the  consequent 
imminent  danger  of  separation  between  north  and  south  had 
all  come  together  ;  and  the  feeling  of  thoughtful  men  and 
women  throughout  the  country  was  one  of  real  consternation. 
The  last  ounce  was  now  to  be  put  upon  the  camel's  back  in 


i;86  GERMS    OF   NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY  235 


PRESIDENT   DICKINSON'S   LETTER   TO   THE    GOVERNOR   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

the  failure  of  the  impost  amendment.  In  1783,  when  the 
cessions  of  western  lands  were  creating  a  national  New  York 
domain,  a  promising  plan  had  been  devised  for  impost  * 
relieving  the  country  of  its  load  of  debt,  and  fur-  amendment 
nishing  Congress  with  money  for  its  current  expenses.  All 
the  money  coming  from  sales  of  the  western  folkland  was  to 
be  applied  to  reducing  and  wiping  out  the  principal  of  the 


236  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

public  debt.  Then  the  interest  of  this  debt  must  be  pro 
vided  for ;  and  to  that  end  Congress  had  recommended  an 
impost,  or  system  of  custom-house  duties,  upon  liquors, 
sugars,  teas,  coffees,  cocoa,  molasses,  and  pepper.  This 
impost  was  to  be  kept  up  for  twenty-five  years  only,  and  the 
collectors  were  to  be  appointed  by  the  several  states,  each 
for  its  own  ports.  Then  for  the  current  expenses  of  the 
government,  supplementary  funds  were  needed  ;  and  these 
were  to  be  assessed  upon  the  several  states,  each  of  which 
might  raise  its  quota  as  it  saw  fit.  Such  was  the  original 
plan ;  but  it  soon  turned  out  that  the  only  available  source 
of  revenue  was  the  national  domain,  which  had  thus  been 
nothing  less  than  the  principal  thread  which  had  held  the 
Union  together.  As  for  the  impost,  it  had  never  been 
possible  to  get  a  sufficient  number  of  states  to  agree  upon 
it,  and  of  the  quotas  for  current  expenses,  as  we  have  seen, 
very  little  had  found  its  way  to  the  federal  treasury.  Under 
these  difficulties,  it  had  been  proposed  that  an  amendment 
to  the  articles  of  confederation  should  endow  Congress  with 
the  power  of  levying  customs-duties  and  appointing  the 
collectors  ;  and  by  the  summer  of  1786,  after  endless  wran 
gling,  twelve  states  had  consented  to  the  amendment.  But, 
in  order  that  an  amendment  should  be  adopted,  unanimous 
consent  was  necessary.  The  one  delinquent  state,  which 
thus  blocked  the  wheels  of  the  confederacy,  was  New  York. 
She  had  her  little  system  of  duties  all  nicely  arranged  for 
what  seemed  to  be  her  own  interests,  and  she  would  not 
surrender  this  system  to  Congress.  Upon  the  neighbouring 
states  her  tariff  system  bore  hard,  and  especially  upon  New 
Jersey.  In  1786  this  state  flatly  refused  to  pay  her  quota 
until  New  York  should  stop  discriminating  against  her  trade. 
Nothing  which  occurred  in  that  troubled  year  caused  more 
alarm  than  this,  for  it  could  not  be  denied  that  such  a  decla 
ration  seemed  little  less  than  an  act  of  secession  on  the  part 
of  New  Jersey.  The  arguments  of  a  congressional  com 
mittee  at  last  prevailed  upon  the  state  to  rescind  her  decla 
ration.  At  the  same  time  there  came  the  final  struggle  in 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


237 


New  York  over  the  impost  amendment,  against  which  Gov 
ernor  Clinton  had  firmly  set  his  face.  There  was  a  fierce 
fight,  in  which  Hamilton's  most  strenuous  efforts  succeeded 
in  carrying  the  amendment  in  part,  but  not  until  it  had  been 


clogged  with  a  condition  that  made  it  useless.  Congress,  it 
was  declared,  might  have  the  revenue,  but  New  York  must 
appoint  the  collectors ;  she  was  not  going  to  have  federal 
officials  rummaging  about  her  docks.  The  legislature  well 
knew  that  to  grant  the  amendment  in  such  wise  was  not 
to  grant  it  at  all,  but  simply  to  reopen  the  whole  question. 
Such  was  the  result.  Congress  expostulated  in  vain.  On 
the  1 5th  of  February,  1787,  the  matter  was  reconsidered  in 
the  New  York  legislature,  and  the  impost  amendment  was 
defeated. 


238  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

Thus,  only  three  months  before  the  Federal  Convention 
was  to  meet,  if  indeed  it  was  ever  to  meet,  Congress  was 
decisively  informed  that  it  would  not  be  allowed  to  take  any 
effectual  measures  for  raising  a  revenue.  There  now 
seemed  nothing  left  for  Congress  to  do  but  adopt  the  recom 
mendation  of  the  Annapolis  commissioners,  and  give  its 
sanction  to  the  proposed  convention.  Madison,  however, 
had  not  waited  for  this,  but  had  prevailed  upon  the  Virginia 
legislature  to  go  on  and  appoint  its  delegates  to  the  conven 
tion.  The  events  of  the  year  had  worked  a  change  in  the 
popular  sentiment  in  Virginia ;  people  were  more  afraid  of 
anarchy,  and  not  quite  so  much  afraid  of  centralization ;  and 
now,  under  Madison's  lead,  Virginia  played  her  trump  card 
and  chose  George  Washington  as  one  of  her  delegates.  As 
Sudden  soon  as  this  was  known,  there  was  an  outburst  of 
popufarsin  J°y  throughout  the  land.  All  at  once  the  people 
sentiment  began  everywhere  to  feel  an  interest  in  the  pro 
posed  convention,  and  presently  Massachusetts  changed  her 
attitude.  Up  to  this  time  Massachusetts  had  been  as  obsti 
nate  in  her  assertion  of  local  independence,  and  as  unwilling 
to  strengthen  the  hands  of  Congress,  as  any  of  the  thirteen 
states,  except  New  York  and  Rhode  Island.  But  the  Shays 
rebellion  had  served  as  a  useful  object-lesson.  Part  of  the 
distress  in  Massachusetts  could  be  traced  to  the  inability  of 
Congress  to  pay  debts  which  it  owed  to  her  citizens.  It  was 
felt  that  the  time  had  come  when  the  question  of  a  national 
revenue  must  be  seriously  considered.  Every  week  saw 
fresh  converts  to  the  party  which  called  for  a  stronger  gov 
ernment.  Then  came  the  news  that  Virginia  had  chosen 
delegates,  and  that  Washington  was  one  of  them ;  then  that 
New  Jersey  had  followed  the  example  ;  then  that  Pennsyl 
vania,  North  Carolina,  Delaware,  had  chosen  delegates.  It 
was  time  for  Massachusetts  to  act,  and  Rufus  King  now 
brought  the  matter  up  in  Congress.  His  scruples  as  to  the 
legality  of  the  proceeding  had  not  changed,  and  accordingly 
he  moved  that  Congress  should  of  itself  propose  a  conven 
tion  at  Philadelphia,  identical  with  the  one  which  the  Annap- 


i787 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


239 

olis  commissioners  had  already  recommended.  The  motion 
was  carried,  and  in  this  way  Congress  formally  approved 
and  adopted  what  was  going  on.  Massachusetts  immedi 
ately  chose  delegates,  and  was  followed  by  New  York.  In 
April,  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  followed  suit.  Connecti 
cut  and  Maryland  came  on  in  May,  and  New  Hampshire, 


OLD    REAR   VIEW    OF    INDEPENDENCE    HALL 

somewhat  tardily,  in  June.     Of  the  thirteen  states,  Rhode 
Island  alone  refused  to  take  any  part  in  the  proceedings. 

The   convention   held   its  meetings    in   that   plain    brick 
building  in  Philadelphia  already  immortalized  as  the  place 
from  which  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  published 
to   the  world.     The  work  which  these  men  were   The  Fed- 
undertaking  was  to  determine  whether  that  Decla-   erai  Con 
vention 
ration  had  been  for  the  blessing  or  the  injury  of   meets  at 

America   and   of  mankind.     That  they   had    sue-   phia,  May 
ceeded   in   assembling   here  at  all  was   somewhat    I4~25' i;8; 
remarkable,  when  we  think  of  the  curious  medley  of  inci- 


240  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

dents  that  led  to  it.  At  no  time  in  this  distressed  period 
would  a  frank  and  abrupt  proposal  for  a  convention  to 
remodel  the  government  have  found  favour.  Such  pro 
posals,  indeed,  had  been  made,  beginning  with  that  of 
Pelatiah  Webster  in  1781,  and  they  had  all  failed  to  break 
through  the  crust  of  a  truly  English  conservatism  and  dread 
of  centralized  power.  Now,  through  what  some  might  have 
called  a  strange  chapter  of  accidents,  before  the  element  of 
causal  sequence  in  it  all  had  become  so  manifest  as  it  is  to 
us  to-day,  this  remarkable  group  of  men  had  been  brought 
together  in  a  single  room,  while  even  yet  but  few  of  them 
realized  how  thoroughly  and  exhaustively  reconstructive 
their  work  was  to  be.  To  most  of  them  it  was  not  clear 
whether  they  were  going  merely  to  patch  up  the  articles  of 
confederation,  or  to  strike  out  into  a  new  and  very  different 
path.  There  were  a  few  who  entertained  far-reaching  pur 
poses  ;  the  rest  were  intelligent  critics  rather  than  construc 
tive  thinkers  ;  the  result  was  surprising  to  all.  It  is  worth 
our  while  to  pause  for  a  moment,  and  observe  the  character 
and  composition  of  one  of  the  most  memorable  assemblies 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  said  that  just 
"as  the  British  Constitution  is  the  most  subtle  organism 
which  has  proceeded  from  progressive  history,  so  the  Ameri 
can  Constitution  is  the  most  wonderful  work  ever  struck  off 
at  a  given  time  by  the  brain  and  purpose  of  man."  It  would 
be  in  the  highest  degree  erroneous,  however,  to  suppose 
that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  not,  as  much 
as  any  other,  an  instance  of  evolution  from  precedents.  It 
is  in  that  very  fact  that  its  excellence  largely  consists. 

Let  us  now  see  who  the  men  were  who  did  this  wonder 
ful  work,  —  this  Iliad,  or  Parthenon,  or  Fifth  Symphony, 
of  statesmanship.  We  shall  not  find  that  they  were  all 
great  geniuses.  Such  is  never  the  case  in  such  an  assembly. 
There  are  not  enough  great  geniuses  to  go  around ;  and 
if  there  were,  it  is  questionable  if  the  result  would  be  satis 
factory.  In  such  discussions  the  points  which  impress  the 
more  ordinary  and  less  far-sighted  members  are  sure  to  have 


1787  GERMS    OF    NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY  241 

great  value ;  especially  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  the 
object  of  such  an  assembly  is  not  merely  to  elaborate  a  plan, 
but  to  get  the  great  mass  of  people,  including  the  brick 
layers  and  hod-carriers,  to  understand  it  well  enough  to  vote 
for  it.  An  ideally  perfect  assembly  of  law-makers  will  there 
fore  contain  two  or  three  men  of  original  constructive 
genius,  two  or  three  leading  spirits  eminent  for  shrewdness 


and  tact,  a  dozen  or  more  excellent  critics  representing  vari 
ous  conflicting  interests,  and  a  rank  and  file  of  thoroughly 
respectable,  commonplace  men,  unfitted  for  shining  in  the 
work  of  the  meeting,  but  admirably  competent  to  proclaim 
its  results  and  get  their  friends  and  neighbours  to  adopt 
them.  And  in  such  an  assembly,  even  if  it  be  such  as  we 
call  ideally  perfect,  we  must  allow  something  for  the  pre- 


242  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

sence  of  a  few  hot-headed  and  irreconcilable  members,  — 
men  of  inflexible  mind,  who  cannot  adapt  themselves  to  cir 
cumstances,  and  will  refuse  to  play  when  they  see  the  game 
going  against  them. 

All  these  points  are  well  illustrated  in  the  assemblage  of 
men  that  framed  our  Federal  Constitution.  In  its  composi 
tion,  this  group  of  men  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  In  its 
•  strength  and  in  its  weakness,  it  was  an  ideally  perfect  assem- 
The  men  ^ty-  There  were  fifty-five  men,  all  of  them  respect- 
who  were  able  for  family  and  for  personal  qualities,  —  men 

assembled  1111 

who  had  been  well  educated,  and  had  done  some 
thing  whereby  to  earn  recognition  in  those  troubled  times. 
Twenty-nine  were  university  men,  graduates  of  Harvard, 
Yale,  Columbia,  Princeton,  William  and  Mary,  Oxford, 
Glasgow,  and  Edinburgh.  Twenty-six  were  not  university 
men,  and  among  these  were  Washington  and  Franklin.  Of 
the  illustrious  citizens  who,  for  their  public  services,  would 
naturally  have  been  here,  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson 
were  in  Europe  ;  Samuel  Adams,  Patrick  Henry,  and  Rich 
ard  Henry  Lee  disapproved  of  the  convention,  and  remained 
at  home  ;  and  the  greatest  man  of  Rhode  Island,  Nathanael 
Greene,  who  —  one  likes  to  think  —  might  have  succeeded 
in  bringing  his  state  into  the  convention,  had  lately  died  of 
a  sun-stroke,  at  the  early  age  of  forty-four. 

Of  the  two  most  famous  men  present  little  need  be  said. 
The  names  of  Washington  and  Franklin  stood  for  supreme 
intelligence  and  consummate  tact.  Franklin  had  returned 
to  this  country  two  years  before,  and  was  now  president  of 
Pennsylvania.  He  was  eighty-one  years  of  age,  the  oldest 
man  in  the  convention,  as  Jonathan  Dayton  of  New  Jersey, 
aged  twenty-six,  was  the  youngest.  The  two  most  profound 
and  original  thinkers  in  the  company  were  but  little  older 
than  Dayton.  Alexander  Hamilton  was  thirty,  James  Madi 
son  thirty-six.  Among  political  writers,  these  two  men  may 
be  ranked  in  the  same  order  with  Aristotle,  Montesquieu, 
and  Locke  ;  and  the  "  Federalist,"  their  joint  production,  is 
one  of  the  greatest  treatises  on  government  ever  written. 


1787 


GERMS    OF   NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


243 


John  Jay,  who  contributed  a  few  pages  to  this  immortal 
volume,  had  not  been  sent  to  the  convention,  because  New 
York  did  not  wish  to  have  it  succeed.  Along  with  Hamilton, 
New  York  sent  two  commonplace  men,  Robert  Yates  and 
John  Lansing,  who  were  extreme  and  obstinate  Antifederal- 
ists;  and  the  action  of  Hamilton,  who  was  thus  prevented 


from  carrying  the  vote  of  his  own  state  for  any  measure 
which  he  might  propose,  was  in  this  way  sadly  embarrassed. 
For  another  reason,  Hamilton  failed  to  exert  as  much  influ 
ence  in  the  convention  as  one  would  have  expected  from  his 
profound  thought  and  his  brilliant  eloquence.  Scarcely  any 
of  these  men  entertained  what  we  should  now  call  extreme 
democratic  views.  Scarcely  any,  perhaps,  had  that  intense 
faith  in  the  ultimate  good  sense  of  the  people  which  was  the 
most  powerful  characteristic  of  Jefferson.  But  Hamilton 


244  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

went  to  the  other  extreme,  and  expressed  his  distrust  of 
popular  government  too  plainly.  His  views  were  too  aristo 
cratic  and  his  preference  for  centralization  was  too  pro 
nounced  to  carry  conviction  to  his  hearers. 

The  leading  part  in  the  convention  fell,  therefore,  to 
James  Madison,  a  young  man  somewhat  less  brilliant  than 
James  Hamilton,  but  superior  to  him  in  sobriety  and 
Madison  balance  of  powers.  Madison  used  to  be  called  the 
"  Father  of  the  Constitution,"  and  it  is  true  that  the  govern 
ment  under  which  we  live  is  more  his  work  than  that  of  any 
other  one  man.  From  early  youth  his  life  had  been  devoted 
to  the  study  of  history  and  the  practice  of  statesmanship. 
He  was  a  graduate  of  Princeton  College,  an  earnest  student, 
familiar  with  all  the  best  literature  of  political  science  from 
Aristotle  down  to  his  own  time,  and  he  had  given  especial 
attention  to  the  history  of  federal  government  in  ancient 
Greece,  and  in  Switzerland  and  Holland.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-five  he  had  taken  part  in  the  Virginia  convention 
which  instructed  the  delegates  from  that  state  in  Congress 
to  bring  forward  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  During 
the  last  part  of  the  war  he  was  an  active  and  influential 
member  of  Congress,  where  no  one  equalled  or  approached 
him  for  knowledge  of  English  history  and  constitutional 
law.  In  1784  he  had  returned  to  the  Virginia  legislature, 
and  been  foremost  in  securing  the  passage  of  the  great  act 
which  gave  complete  religious  freedom  to  the  people  of  that 
state.  No  man  understood  better  than  he  the  causes  of  the 
alarming  weakness  of  the  federal  government,  and  of  the 
commercial  disturbances  and  popular  discontent  of  the  time  ; 
nor  had  any  one  worked  more  zealously  or  more  adroitly  in 
bringing  about  the  meeting  of  this  convention.  As  he  stood 
here  now,  a  leader  in  the  debate,  there  was  nothing  grand  or 
imposing  in  his  appearance.  He  was  small  of  stature  and 
slight  in  frame,  like  Hamilton,  but  he  had  none  of  Hamilton's 
personal  magnetism.  His  manner  was  shy  and  prim,  and 
blushes  came  often  to  his  cheeks.  At  the  same  time,  he 
had  that  rare  dignity  of  unconscious  simplicity  which  charac- 


1787 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY 


terizes  the  earnest  and  disinterested  scholar:  He  was 
exceedingly  sweet-tempered,  generous,  and  kind,  but  very 
hard  to  move  from  a  path  which,  after  long  reflection,  he 
had  decided  to  be  the  right  one.  He  looked  at  politics 
judicially,  and  was  so  little  of  a  party  man  that  on  several 
occasions  he  was  accused  quite  wrongfully  of  gross  inconsist 
ency.  The  position  of  leadership,  which  he  won  so  early 


JAMES    MADISON 

and  kept  so  long,  he  held  by  sheer  force  of  giant  intelli 
gence,  sleepless  industry,  and  an  integrity  which  no  man 
ever  doubted.  But  he  was  above  all  things  a  man  of 
peace.  When  in  after  years,  as  president  of  the  United 
States,  he  was  called  upon  to  manage  a  great  war,  he  was 
out  of  place,  and  his  reputation  for  supreme  ability  was  tern- 


246  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  v 

porarily  lowered.  Here  in  the  Federal  Convention  we  are 
introduced  to  him  at  the  noblest  and  most  useful  moment  of 
his  life. 

Of  the  fifty-five  men  here  assembled,  Washington,  Frank 
lin,  Hamilton,  and  Madison  were  of  the  first  order  of  ability. 
Many  others  in  the  room  were  gentlemen  of  more  than 
Qther  ordinary  talent  and  culture.  There  was  John 
leading  Dickinson,  who  had  moved  from  Pennsylvania  into 

members         -r-.    i  i  -i    <-        -i     i  -i      •    , 

Delaware,  and  now  came  to  defend  the  equal  rights 
of  the  smaller  states.  There  was  James  Wilson  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  born  and  educated  in  Scotland,  one  of  the  most 
learned  jurists  this  country  has  ever  seen.  Beside  him  sat 
the  financier,  Robert  Morris,  and  his  namesake  Gouverneur 
Morris  of  Morrisania,  near  the  city  of  New  York,  the  origi 
nator  of  our  decimal  currency,  and  one  of  the  far-sighted 
projectors  of  the  Erie  Canal.  Then  there  was  John  Rutledge 
of  South  Carolina,  who  ever  since  the  Stamp  Act  Congress 
had  been  the  mainstay  of  his  state  ;  and  with  him  were  the 
two  able  and  gallant  Pinckneys.  Caleb  Strong,  afterward 
ten  times  governor  of  Massachusetts,  was  a  typical  Puri 
tan,  hard-headed  and  sensible  ;  his  colleague,  Rufus  King, 
already  distinguished  for  his  opposition  to  negro  slavery,  was 
a  man  of  brilliant  attainments.  And  there  were  George 
Wythe,  the  learned  chancellor  of  Virginia,  and  Daniel  Car 
roll  of  Maryland,  who  had  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
events  which  led  to  the  creation  of  a  national  domain. 
Oliver  Ellsworth  of  Connecticut,  afterward  chief  justice  of 
the  United  States,  was  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  of  his  time ; 
with  him  were  Roger  Sherman  and'  William  Johnson,  the 
latter  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  afterward  president 
of  Columbia  College.  The  New  Jersey  delegation,  consist 
ing  of  William  Livingston,  David  Brearley,  William  Paterson, 
and  Jonathan  Dayton,  was  a  strong  one  ;  and  as  to  New 
Hampshire,  it  is  enough  to  mention  the  name  of  John 
Langdon.  Besides  all  these  there  were  some  twenty  of  less 
mark,  men  who  said  little,  but  listened  and  voted.  And 
then  there  were  fthe  irreconcilables,  Yates  and  Lansing,  the 


£73; 


GERMS    OF    NATIONAL   SOVEREIGNTY 


247 


two  Antifederalists  from  New  York  ;  and  four  men  of  much 
greater  ability,  who  took  an  important  part  in  the  proceed 
ings,  but  could  not  be  induced  to  accept  the  result.  These 
four  were  Luther  Martin  of  Maryland ;  George  Mason  and 
Edmund  Randolph  of  Virginia ;  and  Elbridge  Gerry  of 
Massachusetts. 

When  these  men  had   assembled  in  Independence  Hall, 
they  chose  George  Washington  president  of  the  convention. 


The  doors  were  locked,  and  an  injunction  of  strict  secrecy 
was  put  upon  every  one.  The  results  of  their  work  were 
known  in  the  following  September,  when  the  draft  of  the 
Federal  Constitution  was  published.  But  just  what  was 
said  and  done  in  this  secret  conclave  was  not  revealed  until 
fifty  years  had  passed,  and  the  aged  James  Madison,  the  last 


248  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP.  v 

survivor  of  those  who  sat  there,  had  been  gathered  to  his 
fathers.  He  kept  a  journal  of  the  proceedings,  which  was 
published  after  his  death,  and  upon  the  interesting  story  told 
in  that  journal  we  have  now  to  enter. 


1787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


251 


ington.  There  was  need  of  such  high  purpose,  for  two 
plans  were  presently  laid  before  the  meeting,  which,  for  a 
moment,  brought  out  one  of  the  chief  elements  of  antago 
nism  existing  between  the  states,  and  which  at  first  seemed 
irreconcilable.  It  was  the  happy  compromise  which  united 
and  harmonized  these  two  plans  that  smoothed  the  further 
work  of  the  convention,  and  made  it  possible  for  a  stable" 
and  powerful  government  to  be  constructed. 

The  first  of  these  plans  was  known  as  the  Virginia  plan. 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON 


It  was  agreed  upon  in  a  committee  of  the  delegates  of  that 
state,  and  was  brought  forward  by  Edmund  Randolph,  gov 
ernor  of  Virginia,  in  the  name  of  the  state,  but  its  chief 
author  was  Madison.     It  struck  instantly  at  the  root  of  the 
difficulties   under  which  the   country  had  been  staggering 
ever  since  the   Declaration  of  Independence.     The  federal 
government  had  possessed  no  means  of  enforcing    Theroot 
obedience  to  its  laws.     Its  edicts  were  without  a   of  ail  the 
sanction  ;    and   this   was    because   they   operated   ' 
upon  states,  and  not  upon  individuals.     When  an  individual 


252  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

defies  the  law,  you  can  lock  him  up  in  jail,  or  levy  an  execu 
tion  upon  his  property.  The  immense  force  of  the  commu 
nity  is  arrayed  against  him,  and  he  is  as  helpless  as  a  straw 
on  the  billows  of  the  ocean.  He  cannot  raise  a  militia  to 
protect  himself.  But  when  the  law  is  defied  by  a  state,  it  is 
quite  otherwise.  You  cannot  put  a  state  into  jail,  nor  seize 
its  goods  ;  you  can  only  make  war  on  it,  and  if  you  try  that 
expedient  you  find  that  the  state  is  not  helpless.  Its  local 
pride  and  prejudices  are  aroused  against  you,  and  its  militia 
will  turn  out  in  full  force  to  uphold  the  infraction  of  law. 
Against  this  obstinate  and  exasperated  military  force  what 
superior  force  can  you  bring  ?  Under  some  rare  combina 
tion  of  circumstances  you  might  get  the  military  force  of 
several  of  the  other  states ;  but  ordinarily,  when  what  you 
are  trying  to  do  is  simply  to  enforce  every-day  laws,  and 
when  you  simply  represent  a  distrusted  general  government 
in  conflict  with  a  local  government,  you  cannot  do  this. 
The  other  states  will  sympathize  with  the  delinquent  states ; 
they  will  feel  that  the  very  same  condition  of  things  which 
leads  you  to  attack  that  state  to-day  will  lead  you  to  attack 
some  other  state  to-morrow.  Hence  you  cannot  get  any 
military  help,  and  you  are  powerless. 

Such  was  the  case  with  the  Continental  Congress.  A 
novel  and  distrusted  institution,  it  was  called  upon  to  enforce 
its  laws  upon  long-established  communities,  full  of  sturdy 
independence  and  obstinate  local  prejudices.  It  was  able  to 
act,  though  with  clumsy  slowness,  as  long  as  there  was  an 
enemy  in  the  field  who  was  even  more  dreaded.  But  as 
soon  as  this  enemy  had  been  beaten  out  of  sight  it  could 
not  act  at  all.  This  had  been  because  it  did  not  represent 
the  American  people,  but  only  the  American  states.  The 
vital  force  which  moved  it  was  not  the  resistless  force  of  a 
whole  people,  but  only  a  shadowy  semblance  of  force,  de 
rived  from  a  theoretical  consent  of  thirteen  corporate  bodies, 
which  in  their  corporate  capacity  could  never  be  compelled 
to  agree  about  anything  under  the  sun  ;  and  unless  com 
pelled  they  would  not  agree.  Four  years  of  disturbance  in 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


253 


every  part  of  the  country,  in  the  course  of  which  troops  had 
been  called  out  in  several  states,  and  civil  war  had  been  nar 
rowly  averted  at  least  half  a  dozen  times,  had  proved  this 
beyond  all  cavil.  With  almost  any  other  people  than  the 
Americans  civil  war  would  have  come  already.  With  all 


the  vast  future  interests  that  were  involved  in  these  quarrels 
looming  up  .before  their  keen,  sagacious  minds,  it  was  a 
wonder  that  they  had  been  kept  from  coming  to  blows. 
Such  self-restraint  had  been  greatly  to  their  credit.  It  was 
the  blessed  fruit  of  more  than  a  century  of  government  by 
free  discussion,  while  yet  these  states  were  colonies,  peopled 
by  the  very  cream  of  English  freemen  who  had  fought  the 
decisive  battle  of  civil  and  religious  freedom  for  mankind 
in  that  long,  crisis  when  the  Invincible  Armada  was  over 
whelmed  and  the  Long  Parliament  won  its  triumphs.  Such 
self-restraint  had  this  people  shown  in  days  of  trial,  under  a 


254  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

vicious  government  adopted  in  a  time  of  hurry  and  sore  dis 
tress.  But  late  events  had  gone  far  to  show  that  it  could 
not  endure. 

The  words  of  Randolph's  opening  speech  are  worth  quot 
ing  in  this  connection.  "The  confederation,"  he  said,  "was 
made  in  the  infancy  of  the  science  of  constitutions,  when 
the  inefficiency  of  requisitions  was  unknown  ;  when  no  com 
mercial  discord  had  arisen  among  states  ;  when  no  rebellion 
like  that  in  Massachusetts  had  broken  out ;  when  foreign 
debts  were  not  urgent ;  when  the  havoc  of  paper  money 
had  not  been  foreseen;  when  treaties  had  not  been  vio 
lated  ;  and  when  nothing  better  could  have  been  conceded 
by  states  jealous  of  their  sovereignty.  But  it  offered  no 
security  against  foreign  invasion,  for  Congress  could  neither 
prevent  nor  conduct  a  war,  nor  punish  infractions  of  treaties 
or  of  the  law  of  nations,  nor  control  particular  states  from 
provoking  war.  The  federal  government  has  no  constitu 
tional  power  to  check  a  quarrel  between  separate  states  ; 
nor  to  suppress  a  rebellion  in  any  one  of  them  ;  nor  to 
establish  a  productive  impost  ;  nor  to  counteract  the  com 
mercial  regulations  of  other  nations  ;  nor  to  defend  itself 
against  the  encroachments  of  the  states.  From  the  manner 
in  which  it  has  been  ratified  in  many  of  the  states,  it  cannot 
be  claimed  to  be  paramount  to  the  state  constitutions  ;  so 
that  there  is  a  prospect  of  anarchy  from  the  inherent  laxity 
of  the  government.  As  the  remedy,  the  government  to  be 
established  must  have  for  its  basis  the  republican  principle." 

Having  thus  tersely  stated  the  whole  problem,  Randolph 
went  on  to  present  the  Virginia  plan.  To  make  the  federal 
government  operate  directly  upon  individuals,  one  provision 
Thevir-  was  absolutely  necessary.  It  did  not  solve  the 
f radicaT '  wn°le  problem,  but  it  was  an  indispensable  begin- 
cure  njng  This  was  the  proposal  that  there  should  be 

a  national  legislature,  in  which  the  American  people  instead 
of  the  American  states  should  be  represented.  For  the 
purposes  of  federal  legislation,  there  must  be  an  assembly 
elected  directly  by  the  people,  and  with  its  members  appor- 


178? 


THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


255 


tioned  according  to  population.  There  must  be  such  an 
assembly  as  our  present  House  of  Representatives,  standing 
in  the  same  immediate  relation  to  the  people  of  the  whole 
country  as  was  sustained  by  the  assembly  of  each  separate 


state  to  the  people  of  that  state.  Without  such  direct  re 
presentation  of  the  whole  people  in  the  Federal  Congress,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  achieve  one  secure  step  toward  the 
radical  reform  of  the  weaknesses  and  vices  of  the  confedera 
tion.  It  was  the  only  way  in  which  the  vexed  question  of 
one  nation  or  thirteen  could  be  made  to  yield  a  satisfactory 
answer.  At  the  same  time  it  could  not  be  denied  that  such 
a  proposal  was  revolutionary  in  character.  It  paved  the  way 
for  a  national  consolidation  which  might  go  further  than  any 


256  THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

one  could  foresee,  and  much  further  than  was  desirable.. 
The  moribund  Congress  of  the  Confederation,  with  its  dele 
gates  chosen  by  the  state  assemblies,  and  casting  its  vote 
simply  by  states,  had  utterly  failed  to  serve  as  a  national 
legislature.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  what  John 
Adams  once  said  of  it,  that  it  was  more  a  diplomatic  than 
a  legislative  body.  It  was,  indeed,  because  of  this  con 
sciously  felt  diplomatic  character  that  it  was  called  a  Con 
gress,  and  not  a  Parliament.  In  its  lack  of  coercive  power 
it  resembled  the  international  congresses  of  Europe  rather 
than  the  supreme  legislature  of  any  country.  To  substitute 
abruptly  for  such  a  body  a  truly  national  legislature,  based 
not  upon  states  but  upon  population,  was  quietly  to  inaugu 
rate  a  revolution  of  no  less  magnitude  than  that  which  had 
lately  severed  us  from  Great  Britain.  So  bold  a  step,  while 
all-essential  in  order  to  complete  that  revolution,  and  make 
its  victorious  issue  fortunate  instead  of  disastrous  to  the 
American  people,  was  sufficiently  revolutionary  to  awaken 
the  fears  of  many  members  of  the  Federal  Convention.  To 
the  familiar  state  governments  which  had  so  long  possessed 
their  love  and  allegiance,  it  was  superadding  a  new  and 
untried  government,  which  it  was  feared  would  swallow  up 
the  states  and  everywhere  extinguish  local  independence. 
Nor  can  it  be  said  that  such  fears  were  unreasonable.  Our 
federal  government  has  indeed  shown  a  strong  tendency  to 
encroach  upon  the  province  of  the  state  governments,  espe 
cially  since  our  late  Civil  War.  Too  much  centralization  is 
our  danger  to-day,  as  the  weakness  of  the  federal  tie  was 
our  danger  a  century  ago.  The  rule  of  the  Federalist  party 
was  needed  in  1789  as  the  rule  of  the  Republican  party  was 
needed  in  1861,  to  put  a  curb  upon  the  centrifugal  tenden 
cies.  But  after  Federalism  had  fairly  done  its  great  work, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  was  well  that 
the  administration  of  our  national  affairs  should  pass  into 
the  hands  of  the  party  to  which  Thomas  Jefferson  and 
Samuel  Adams  belonged,  and  which  Madison,  in  his  calm 
statesmanlike  wisdom,  had  come  to  join.  And  now  that, 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  257 

in  our  own  day,  the  disruptive  forces  have  been  even  more 
thoroughly  and  effectually  overcome,  it  is  time  for  the  prin 
ciples  of  that  party  to  be  reasserted  with  fresh  emphasis. 
If  the  day  should  ever  arrive  (which  God  forbid  !)  when 
the  people  of  the  different  parts  of  our  country  shall  allow 
their  local  affairs  to  be  administered  by  prefects  sent  from 
Washington,  and  when  the  self-government  of  the  states 


shall  have  been  so  far  lost  as  that  of  the  departments  of 
France,  or  even  so  closely  limited  as  that  of  the  counties 
of  England,  —  on  that  day  the  political  career  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  will  have  been  robbed  of  its  most  interesting  and 
valuable  features,  and  the  usefulness  of  this  nation  will  be 
lamentably  impaired. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  historian  writing  at  the  present 
day  need  fear  any  such  direful  calamity,  for  the  past  century 
has  shown  most  instructively  how,  in  such  a  society  as  ours, 
the  sense  of  political  dangers  slowly  makes  its  way  through 


258  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vr 

the  whole  mass  of  the  people,  until  movements  at  length  are 
made  to  avert  them,  and  the  pendulum  swings  in  the  opposite 
direction.  The  history  of  political  parties  in  the  United 
States  is  especially  rich  in  lessons  of  this  sort.  Compared 
with  the  statesmen  of  the  Federal  Convention,  we  are  at  a 
great  advantage  in  studying  this  question  of  national  consoli 
dation  ;  and  we  have  no  excuse  for  failing  to  comprehend  the 
attitude  of  the  men  who  dreaded  the  creation  of  a  national 
legislature  as  the  entering  wedge  which  would  by  and  by  rend 
asunder  the  structure  of  our  liberties.  The  great  mind  of 
Madison  was  one  of  the  first  to  entertain  distinctly  the  noble 
conception  of  two  kinds  of  government  operating  at  one  and 
the  same  time  upon  the  same  individuals,  harmonious  with 
each  other,  but  each  supreme  in  its  own  sphere.  Such  is  the 
fundamental  conception  of  our  partly  federal,  partly  national, 
government,  which  appears  throughout  the  Virginia  plan  as 
well  as  in  the  Constitution  which  grew  out  of  it.  It  was  a 
political  conception  of  a  higher  order  than  had  ever  before 
been  entertained ;  it  took  a  great  deal  of  discussion  to  make 
it  clear  to  the  minds  of  the  delegates  generally ;  and  the 
struggle  over  this  initial  measure  of  a  national  legislature 
was  so  bitter  as  to  come  near  breaking  up  the  convention. 
i  In  its  original  shape  the  Virginia  plan  went  much  further 
I  toward  national  consolidation  than  the  Constitution  as 
(  adopted.  The  reaction  against  the  evils  of  the  loose-jointed 
confederation,  which  Randolph  so  ably  summed  up,  was 
extreme.  According  to  the  Virginia  plan,  the  national  legis 
lature  was  to  be  composed  of  two  houses,  like  the  legisla 
tures  of  the  several  states.  The  members  of  the  lower  house 
should  be  chosen  directly  by  the  people ;  members  of  the 
upper  house,  or  Senate,  should  be  elected  by  the  lower 
house  out  of  persons  nominated  by  the  state  legislatures. 
In  both  the  lower  and  the  upper  branches  of  this  national 
legislature  the  votes  were  to  be  the  votes  of  individuals,  and 
no  longer  the  votes  of  states,  as  in  the  Continental  Con 
gress.  Under  the  articles  of  confederation  each  state  had 
an  equal  vote,  and  two  thirds  were  required  for  many  of  the 


1787  THE    FEDERAL    CONVENTION  259 

most  important  measures.  Under  the  proposed  Constitution 
each  state  was  to  have  a  number  of  representatives  propor 
tionate  either  to  its  wealth  or  to  the  number  of  its  free  in 
habitants,  and  a  bare  majority  of  votes  was  to  suffice  to  pass 
all  measures  in  the  ordinary  course  of  business ;  and  these 
rules  were  to  apply  both  to  the  lower  house  and  to  the 
Senate.  To  adopt  such  a  plan  would  overthrow  the  equality 
of  the  states  altogether.  It  would  give  Virginia,  the  great 
est  state,  sixteen  representatives,  where  Georgia,  the  smallest 
state,  had  but  one  ;  and  besides,  as  the  votes  were  no  longer 
to  be  taken  by  states,  individual  members  could  combine  in 
any  way  they  pleased,  quite  irrespective  of  state  lines.  It 
was  not  strange  that  to  many  delegates  in  the  convention 
such  a  beginning  should  have  seemed  revolutionary.  This 
impression  was  deepened  when  it  was  further  proposed  not 
only  to  clothe  this  national  legislature  with  original  powers 
of  legislation  in  all  cases  to  which  the  several  states  are 
incompetent,  but  also  to  allow  it  to  set  aside  at  discretion 
such  state  laws  as  it  might  deem  unconstitutional.^  It  is 
interesting  to  find  Madison,  whose  Federalism  afterward 
came  to  be  so  moderate,  now  appearing  as  the  earnest  de 
fender  of  this  extreme  provision,  so  incompatible  with  state 
rights.  But  in  Madison's  mind  at  this  moment,  in  the  actual 
presence  of  the  anarchy  of  the  confederation,  the  only  alter 
native  which  seemed  to  present  itself  was  that  of  armed 
coercion.  "  A  negative  on  state  laws,"  he  said,  "  is  the  mild 
est  expedient  that  can  be  devised  for  enforcing  a  national 
decree.  Should  no  such  precaution  be  engrafted,  the  only 
remedy  would  be  coercion.  The  negative  would  render  the 
use  of  force  unnecessary.  This  prerogative  of  the  general 
government  is  the  great  pervading  principle  that  must  con 
trol  the  centrifugal  tendency  of  the  states,  which,  without  it, 
will  continually  fly  out  of  their  proper  orbits,  and  destroy  the 
order  and  harmony  of  the  political  system."  But  these  views 
were  not  destined  to  find  favour  with  the  convention,  which 
finally  left  the  matter  to  be  much  more  satisfactorily  ad 
justed  through  the  medium  of  the  federal  judiciary. 


26o  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

Such  were  the  fundamental  provisions  of  the  Virginia  plan 
with  regard  to  the  national  legislature.  To  carry  out  the 
laws,  it  was  proposed  that  there  should  be  a  national  execu 
tive,  to  be  chosen  by  the  national  legislature  for  a  short 
term,  and  ineligible  a  second  time.  v  Whether  the  executive 
power  should  be  invested  in  a  single  person  or  in  several  was 
not  specified.  As  will  be  seen  hereafter,  this  was  regarded 
as  an  extremely  delicate  point,  with  which  it  was  thought 
best  not  to  embarrass  the  Virginia  plan  at  the  outset.  Pass 
ing  lightly  over  this,  it  was  urged  that,  in  order  to  complete 
the  action  of  the  government  upon  individuals,  there  must 
be  a  national  judiciary  to  determine  cases  arising  under  the 
Constitution,  cases  in  admiralty,  ^nd  cases  in  which  different 
states  or  their  citizens  appear  as  parties.  v  The  judges  were 
to  be  chosen  by  the  national  legislature,  to  hold  office  during 
good  behaviour. 

Such,  in  its  main  outlines,  was  the  plan  which  Randolph 
First  recep-  laid  before  the  convention,  in  the  name  of  the 
v^gi°niahe  Virginia  delegation.  An  audacious  scheme !  ex- 
Plan  claimed  some  of  the  delegates ;  it  was  enough  to 

take  your  breath  away.  If  they  were  going  to  begin  like 
this,  they  might  as  well  go  home,  for  all  discussion  would 
be  time  wasted.  They  were  not  sent  there  to  set  on  foot  a 
revolution,  but  to  amend  and  strengthen  the  articles  of  con 
federation.  But  this  audacious  plan  simply  abolished  the 
Confederation  in  order  to  substitute  for  it  a  consolidated 
national  government.  Foremost  in  urging  this  objection 
were  Yates  and  Lansing  of  New  York,  with  Luther  Martin 
of  Maryland.  Dickinson  said  it  was  pushing  things  alto 
gether  too  far,  and  his  colleague,  George  Read,  hinted  that 
the  delegation  from  Delaware  might  feel  obliged  to  withdraw 
from  the  convention  if  the  election  of  representatives  accord 
ing  to  population  should  be  adopted.  By  the  tact  of  Madi 
son  and  Gouverneur  Morris  this  question  was  postponed 
for  a  few  days.  After  some  animated  discussion,  the  issues 
became  so  narrowed  and  defined  that  they  could  be  taken 
up  one  by  one.  It  was  first  decided  that  the  national 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  261 

legislature  should  consist  of  two  branches.  Then  came  a 
warm  discussion  as  to  whether  the  members  of  the  lower 
house  should  be  elected  directly  by  the  people.  Curiously 
enough,  in  a  country  where  the  principle  of  popular  election 
had  long  since  taken  such  deep  root,  where  the  assemblies 
of  the  several  states  had  been  chosen  by  the  people  from 


r^ 


the  very  beginning,  there  was  some  doubt  as  to  whether  the 
same  principle  could  safely  be  applied  to  the  national  House 
of  Representatives.  Gerry,  with  his  head  full  of  the  Shays 
rebellion  and  the  "  Know  Ye  "  measures  of  the  neighbour 
ing  state,  thought  the  people  could  not  be  trusted.  "  The 
people  do  not  want  virtue,"  said  he,  "but  are  the  dupes 
of  pretended  patriots."  Roger  Sherman  took  a  similar  view, 
and  was  supported  by  Martin,  Rutledge,  and  both  the 
Pinckneys ;  but  the  sounder  opinion  prevailed.  On  this 
point  Hamilton  was  at  one  with  Mason,  Wilson,  and  Dickin 
son.  The  proposed  assembly,  said  Mason,  was  to  be,  so 


262  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

to  speak,  our  House  of  Commons,  and  ought  to  know  and 
sympathize  with  every  part  of  the  community.  It  ought  to 
have  at  heart  the  rights  and  interests  of  every  class  of  the 
people,  and  in  no  other  way  could  this  end  be  so  completely 
attained  as  by  popular  election.  "  Yes,"  added  Wilson, 
"without  the  confidence  of  the  people  no  government,  least 
of  all  a  republican  government,  can  long  subsist.  .  .  .  The 
election  of  the  first  branch  by  the  people  is  not  the  cor 
ner-stone  only,  but  the  foundation  of  the  fabric."  "It  is 
essential  to  the  democratic  rights  of  the  community,"  said 
Hamilton,  "  that  the  first  branch  be  directly  elected  by  the 
people."  Madison  argued  powerfully  on  the  same  side,  and 
the  question  was  finally  decided  in  favour  of  popular  elec 
tion. 

It  was  now  the  4th  of  June,  when  the  great  question  came 
up  which  nearly  wrecked  the  convention  before  it  was 
settled,  after  a  whole  month  of  stormy  debate.  This  was 
the  question  as  to  how  the  states  should  be  represented  in 
Antag.  the  new  Congress.  On  the  Virginia  plan,  the 
onism  be-  smaller  states  would  be  virtually  swamped.  Unless 

tween  large  J 

states  and  they  could  have  equal  votes,  without  regard  to 
wealth  or  population,  they  would  be  at  the  mercy 
of  the  great  states.  In  the  division  which  ensued,  the  four 
most  populous  states — Virginia,  Massachusetts,  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  North  Carolina  —  favoured  the  Virginia  plan ; 
and  they  succeeded  in  carrying  South  Carolina  with  them. 
Georgia,  too,  which,  though  weak  at  that  moment,  possessed 
considerable  room  for  expansion,  voted  upon  the  same  side. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  states  of  Connecticut,  New  Jersey, 
Delaware,  and  Maryland  —  which  were  not  only  small  in  area, 
but  were  cut  off  from  further  expansion  by  their  geographi 
cal  situation  —  were  not  inclined  to  give  up  their  equal  vote 
in  either  branch  of  the  national  legislature.  At  this  stage 
of  the  proceedings  the  delegation  from  New  Hampshire  had 
not  yet  arrived  upon  the  scene.  On  several  occasions  the 
majority  of  the  Maryland  delegation  went  with  the  larger 
states,  but  Luther  Martin,  always  opposed  to  the  Virginia 


1787  THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION  263 

plan,  usually  succeeded  in  dividing  the  vote  of  the  delegation. 
Of  the  New  York  members,  Yates  and  Lansing,  here  as 
always,  thwarted  Hamilton  by  voting  with  the  smaller  states. 
Their  policy  throughout  was  one  of  obstruction.  The  mem 
bers  from  Connecticut  were  disposed  to  be  conciliatory ;  but 
New  Jersey  was  obstinate  and  implacable.  She  knew  what 
it  was  to  be  tyrannized  over  by  powerful  neighbours.  The 
wrongs  she  had  suffered  from  New  York  and  Pennsylvania 
rankled  in  the  minds  of  her  delegates. 

Accordingly,  in  the  name  of  the  smaller  states,  William 


Paterson   laid   before   the    convention  the    so-called  "New 
Jersey  plan  "  for  the  amendment  of  the  articles  of   The  New 
confederation.     This    scheme   admitted    a   federal   J^sey 
legislature,  consisting  of  a  single  house,  an  execu-   a  feeble 

.        ~  palliative 

tive  in  the  form  of  a  council  to  be  chosen  by  Con 
gress,  and   likewise    a  federal   judiciary,  with    powers    less 
extensive   than  those   contemplated  by  the  Virginia  plan. 


264  THE   CRITICAL    PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

It  gave  to  Congress  the  power  to  regulate  foreign  and  do 
mestic  commerce,  to  levy  duties  on  imports,  and  even  to 
raise  internal  revenue  by  means  of  a  Stamp  Act.  But  with 
all  this  apparent  liberality  on  the  surface,  the  New  Jersey 
plan  was  vicious  at  bottom.  It  did  not  really  give  Congress 
the  power  to  act  immediately  upon  individuals.  The  federal 
legislature  which  it  proposed  was  to  represent  states,  and 
not  individuals,  and  the  states  were  to  vote  equally,  without 
regard  to  wealth  or  population.  If  things  were  to  be  left  in 
this  shape,  there  was  no  security  that  the  powers  granted 
to  Congress  could  ever  be  really  exercised.  Nay,  it  was 
almost  certain  that  they  could  not  be  put  into  operation. 
It  was  easy  enough  on  paper  to  give  Congress  the  permis 
sion  to  levy  duties  and  regulate  commerce,  but  such  a  per 
mission  would  amount  to  nothing  unless  Congress  were 
armed  with  the  power  of  enforcing  its  decrees  upon  indi 
viduals.  And  it  could  in  no  wise  acquire  such  power  unless 
as  the  creature  of  the  people,  and  not  of  the  states.  The 
New  Jersey  plan,  therefore,  furnished  no  real  remedy^for 
the  evils  which  afflicted  the  country.  It  was  vigorously 
opposed  by  Hamilton,  Madison,  Wilson,  and  King.  Hamil 
ton,  indeed,  took  this  occasion  to  offer  a  plan  of  his  own, 
which,  in  addition  to  Madison's  scheme  of  a  purely  national 
legislature,  contained  the  features  of  a  tenure  for  life  or 
good  behaviour,  for  the  executive  and  the  members  of  the 
upper  house.  But  to  most  of  the  delegates  this  scheme 
seemed  too  little  removed  from  a  monarchy,  and  Hamilton's 
brilliant  speech  in  its  favour,  while  applauded  by  many,  was 
supported  by  none.  The  weighty  arguments  of  Wilson, 
King,  and  Madison  prevailed,  and  the  New  Jersey  plan  lost 
its  original  shape  when  it  was  decided  that  Congress  should 
consist  of  two  houses.  The  principle  of  equal  state  repre 
sentation,  however,  remained  as  a  stumbling-block.  Pater- 
son,  supported  by  his  able  colleague  Brearley,  as  well  as  by 
Martin  and  the  two  irreconcilables  from  New  York,  stoutly 
maintained  that  to  departjrom_this  principle  would  be  to 
exceed  the  powers  of  the  cmwejrtio^  was 


1787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


265 


not  intended  to  remodel  the  government  from  beginning  to 
end.  But  Randolph  answered,  "  When  the  salvation  of  the 
republic  is  at  stake,  it  would  be  treason  to  our  trust  not 
to  prqpose  what  we  find  necessary  ;  "  ''and  Hamilton  pithily 
reminded  the  delegates  that  as  they  were  there  only  for  the 
purpose  of  recommending  a  scheme  which  would  have  to 
be  submitted  to  the  states  for  acceptance,  they  need  not  be 
deterred  by  any  false  scruples  from  using  their  wits  to  the 
best  possible  advantage. 

The  debate  on  the  merits  of  the  question  was  an  angry 
one.  According  to  the  Vir 
ginia  plan,  said  Brearley,  the 
three  states  of  Virginia,  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  Pennsylvania 
will  carry  everything  before 
them.  "It  was  known  to  him, 
from  facts  within  New  Jersey, 
that  where  large  and  small 
counties  were  united  into  a 
district  for  electing  represen 
tatives  for  the  district,  the 
large  counties  always  carried 
their  point,  and  consequently 
the  large  states  would  do  so. 
.  .  .  Was  it  fair,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  Georgia 
should  have  an  equal  vote 

with  Virginia  ?  He  would  not  say  it  was.  What  remedy, 
then  ?  One  only  :  that  a  map  of  the  United  States  be 
spread  out,  that  all  the  existing  boundaries  be  erased,  and 
that  a  new  partition  of  the  whole  be  made  into  thirteen 
equal  parts."  "Yes,"  said  Paterson,  "a  confederacy  sup 
poses  sovereignty  in  the  members  composing  it,  and  sover 
eignty  supposes  equality.  If  we  are  to  be  considered  as  a 
nation,  all  state  distinctions  must  be  abolished,  the  whole 
must  be  thrown  into  hotchpot,  and  when  an  equal  division  is 
made  then  there  may  be  fairly  an  equality  of  representa- 


266  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

tion."  This  argument  was  repeated  with  a  triumphant  air, 
as  seeming  to  reduce  the  Virginia  plan  to  absurdity.  Pater- 
son  went  on  to  say  that  "  there  was  no  more  reason  that  a 
great  individual  state,  contributing  much,  should  have  more 
votes  than  a  small  one,  contributing  little,  than  that  a  rich 
individual  citizen  should  have  more  votes  than  an  indigent 
one.  If  the  ratable  property  of  A  was  to  that  of  B  as  forty 
to  one,  ought  A,  for  that  reason,  to  have  forty  times  as  many 
votes  as  B  ?  .  .  .  Give  the  large  states  an  influence  in  pro 
portion  to  their  magnitude,  and  what  will  be  the  conse 
quence  ?  Their  ambition  will  be  proportionally  increased, 
and  the  small  states  will  have  everything  to  fear.  It  was 
once  proposed  by  Galloway  [in  the  first  Continental  Con 
gress]  that  America  should  be  represented  in  the  British 
Parliament,  and  then  be  bound  by  its  laws.  America  could 
not  have  been  entitled  to  more  than  one  third  of  the  repre 
sentatives  which  would  fall  to  the  share  of  Great  Britain  : 
would  American  rights  and  interests  have  been  safe  under 
an  authority  thus  constituted  ?  "  Then,  warming  with  the 
subject,  he  exclaimed,  If  the  great  states  wish  to  unite  on 
such  a  plan,  "let  them  unite  if  they  please,  but  let  them 
remember  that  they  have  no  authority  to  compel  the  others 
to  unite.  .  .  .  Shall  I  submit  the  welfare  of  New  Jersey 
with  five  votes  in  a  council  where  Virginia  has  sixteen  ?  .  .  . 
I  will  never  consent  to  the  proposed  plan.  I  will  not  only 
oppose  it  here,  but  on  my  return  home  will  do  everything 
in  my  power  to  defeat  it  there.  Neither  my  state  nor  myself 
will  ever  submit  to  tyranny." 

Paterson  was  ably  answered  by  James  Wilson  of  Penn 
sylvania,  who  pointed  out  the  absurdity  of  giving  180,000 
men  in  one  part  of  the  country  as  much  weight  in  the 
national  legislature  as  750,000  in  another  part.  ^Tt  is  unjust, 
he  said.  "  The  gentleman  from  New  Jersey  is  candid.  He 
declares  his  opinions  boldly.  I  commend  him  for  it.  I  will 
be  equally  candid.  ...  I  never  will  confederate  on  his 
principles."  The  convention  grew  nervous  and  excited  over 
this  seemingly  irreconcilable  antagonism.  The  discussion 


1787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


267 


was  kept  up  with  much  learning  and  acuteness  by  Madison, 
Ellsworth,  and  Martin,  and  history  was  ransacked  for  testi 
mony  from  the  Amphiktyonic  Council  to  Old  Sarum,  and 
back  again  to  the  Lykian  League.  Madison,  rightly  reading 
the  future,  declared  that  if  once  the  proposed  union  should 
be  formed,  the  real  danger  would  come  not  from  the  rivalry 
between  large  and  small  states,  but  from  the  antagonistic^ 
interests  of  the  slaveholding  and  non-slaveholding  states. 


Hamilton  pointed  out  that  in  the  state  of  New  York  five 
counties  had  a  majority  of  the  representatives,  and  yet  the 
citizens  of  the  other  counties  were  in  no  danger  of  tyranny, 
as  the  laws  have  an  equal  operation  upon  all.  "Kufus  King 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  rights  of  Scotland  were 
secure  from  encroachments,  although  her  representation  in 
Parliament  was  necessarily  smaller  than  that  of  England. 


268 


THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD 


CHAP.  VI 


But  New  Jersey  and  Delaware,  mindful  of  recent  grievances, 
were  not  to  be  argued  down  or  soothed.  Gunning  Bedford 
of  Delaware  was  especially  violent.  "  Pretences  to  support 
ambition,"  said  he,  "  are  never  wanting.  The  cry  is,  Where 


is  the  danger  ?  and  it  is  insisted  that  although  the  powers  of 
the  general  government  will  be  increased,  yet  it  will  be  for 
the  good  of  the  whole  ;  and  although  the  three  great  states 
form  nearly  a  majority  of  the  people  of  America,  they  never 
will  injure  the  lesser  states.  Gentlemen,  I  do  not  trust 
yon.  If  you  possess  the  power,  the  abuse  of  it  could  not 
be  checked  ;  and  what  then  would  prevent  you  from  exer 
cising  it  to  our  destruction  ?  .  .  .  Sooner  than  be  ruined, 
tJiere  are  foreign  powers  who  will  take  us  by  the  hand.  I 
say  this  not  to  threaten  or  intimidate,  but  that  we  should 
reflect  seriously  before  we  act."  This  language  called  forth 


;87 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


269 


a  rebuke  from  Rufus  King.  "  I  am  concerned,"  said  he, 
"  for  what  fell  from  the  gentleman  from  Delaware,  —  take  a 
foreign  power  by  the  hand !  I  am  sorry  he  mentioned  it, 
and  I  hope  he  is  able  to  excuse  it  to  himself  on  the  score 
of  passion." 

The  situation  had  become  dangerous.  "The  convention," 
said  Martin,  "  was  on  the  verge  of  dissolution,  scarce  held 
together  by  the  strength  of  a  hair."  When  things  were 


looking  darkest,  Oliver  Ellsworth  and  Roger  Sherman  sug 
gested  a  compromise.  "  Yes,"  said  Franklin,  "when  a  joiner 
wishes  to  fit  two  boards,  he  sometimes  pares  off  a  bit  from 
both."  The  famous  Connecticut  compromise  led  the  way 


27o  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

to  the  arrangement  which  was  ultimately  adopted,  according 
to  which  th«  national  principle  was  to  prevail  in  the 
necticuT  House  of  Representatives,  and  the  federal  prin- 
e  ciple  in  the  Senate.  But  at  first  the  compromise 
met  with  little  favour.  Neither  party  was  willing  to  give 
way.  "  No  compromise  for  us,"  said  Luther  Martin.  "You 
must  give  each  state  an  equal  suffrage,  or  our  business  is  at 
an  end."  "  Then  we  are  come  to  a  full  stop,"  said  Roger 
Sherman.  "  I  suppose  it  was  never  meant  that  we  should 
break  up  without  doing  something."  When  the  question  as 
to  allowing  equality  of  suffrage  to  the  states  in  the  Federal 
Senate  was  put  to  vote,  the  result  was  a  tie.  Connecticut, 
New  York,  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  and  Maryland  —  five 
states  —  voted  in  the  affirmative  ;  Massachusetts,  Pennsylva 
nia,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and  South  Carolina  —  five 
states  —  voted  in  the  negative  ;  the  vote  of  Georgia  was 
divided  and  lost.  It  was  Abraham  Baldwin,  a  native  of 
Connecticut  and  lately  a  tutor  in  Yale  College,  a  recent 
emigrant  to  Georgia,  who  thus  divided  the  vote  of  that  state, 
and  prevented  a  decision  which  would  in  all  probability  have 
broken  up  the  convention.  His  state  was  the  last  to  vote, 
and  the  house  was  hushed  in  anxious  expectation,  when  this 
brave  and  wise  young  man  yielded  his  private  conviction  to 
what  he  saw  to  be  the  paramount  necessity  of  keeping  the 
convention  together.  All  honour  to  his  memory ! 

The  moral  effect  of  the  tie  vote  was  in  favour  of  the  Con 
necticut  compromise ;  for  no  one  could  doubt  that  the  little 
states,  New  Hampshire  and  Rhode  Island,  had  they  been 
represented  in  the  division,  would  have  voted  upon  that  side. 
The  matter  Was  referred  to  a  committee  as  impartially  con 
stituted  as  possible,  with  Elbridge  Gerry  as  chairman  ;  and 
on  the  5th  of  July/ after  a  recess  of  three  days,  the  com 
mittee  reported  in  favour  of  the  compromise.  Fresh  objec 
tions  on  the  part  of  the  large  states  were  now  offered  by 
Wilson  and  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  gloom  again  overhung 
the  convention.  Gerry  said  that,  while  he  did  not  fully 
approve  of  the  compromise,  he  had  nevertheless  supported 


1787  THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION  271 

it,  because  he  felt  sure  that  if  nothing  were  done  war  and 
confusion  must  ensue,  the  old  confederation  being  already 
virtually  at  an  end.  George  Mason  observed  that  "it  could 
not  be  more  inconvenient  for  any  gentleman  to  remain 


absent  from  his  private  affairs  than  it  was  for  him  ;  but  he 
would  bury  his  bones  in  that  city  rather  than  expose  his 
country  to  the  consequences  of  a  dissolution  of  the  conven 
tion."  Mason's  subsequent  course  was  not  quite  in  keeping 
with  the  promise  of  this  brave  speech,  and  in  Gerry  we  shall 
observe  a  similar  divergence.  At  present  a  timely  speech 
from  Madison  soothed  the  troubled  waters  ;  but  it  was  only 


272  THL   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

after  eleven  days  of  somewhat  more  tranquil  debate  that  the 
compromise  was  adopted  on  the  i6th  of  July.  Even  then 
it  was  but  narrowly  secured.  The  ayes  were  Connecticut, 
New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  North  Carolina, — five 
states  ;  the  noes  were  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  South  Caro 
lina,  and  Georgia,  —  four  states  ;  Gerry  and  Strong  against 
King  and  Gorham  divided  the  vote  of  -Massachusetts,  which 
was  thus  lost.  New  York,  for  reasons  presently  to  be 
stated,  was  absent.  It  is  accordingly  to  Elbridge  Gerry  and 
Caleb  Strong  that  posterity  are  indebted  for  here  prevent 
ing  a  tie,  and  thus  bringing  the  vexed  question  to  a  happy 
issue. 

According  to  the  compromise  secured  with  so  much  diffi 
culty,  it  was  arranged  that  in  the  lower  house  population  was 
to  be  represented,  and  in  the  upper  house  the  states,  each  of 
which,  without  regard  to  size,  was  forever  to  be  entitled 
to  two  senators.^  In  the  lower  house  there  was  to  be  one 
representative  for  every  40,000  inhabitants,  Wit  at  Washing 
ton's  suggestion  the  number  was  changed  to  30,000/50  as 
to  increase  the  house,  which  then  seemed  likely  to  be  too 
small  in  numbers.  Some  one  suggested  that  with  the  growth 
of  population  that  rate  would  make  an  unwieldy  house  within 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years  from  that  time,  whereat  Gorham  of 
Massachusetts  laughed  to  scorn  the  idea  that  any  system  of 
government  they  could  devise  in  that  room  could  possibly 
last  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  The  difficulty  has  been  sur 
mounted  by  enlarging  from  time  to  time  the  basis  of  repre 
sentation.  It  now  seemed  inadvisable  that  the  senators 
should  be  chosen  by  the  lower  house  out  of  persons  nomi 
nated  by  the  state  legislatures;  and  it  was  accordingly 
decided  that  they  should  be  not  merely  nominated,  but 
elected,  by  the  state  legislatures.  'Thus  the  Senate  was 
made  quite  independent  of  the  lower  house.  At  the  same 
time,  the  senators  were  to  vote  as  individuals,  and  thus  the 
old  practice  of  voting  by  states,  except  in  certain  peculiar 
emergencies,  was  finally  done  away  with. " 

It  is  seldom,  if  ever,  that  a  political  compromise  leaves 


1787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


273 


things  evenly  balanced.     Almost  every  such  arrangement, 
when  once  set  working,  weighs  down  the  scales  decidedly 
to  the  one  side  or  the  other.     The  Connecticut  compromise 
was  really  a  decisive  victory  for  Madison  and   his  party, 
although    it    modified   the    Virginia    plan    so    considerably. 
They  could  well  afford  to  defer  to  the  fears  and  prejudices 
of  the  smaller  states  in  the  structure  of  the  Sen-    It  wag  a 
ate,  for  by  securing  a  lower  house,  which  repre-   decisive 
sented  the  American  people,  and  not  the  American    Madison? 
states,  they  won  the  whole  battle  in  so  far  as  the    ' 
question   of  radically  reforming  the  government  was   con 
cerned.  ^As  soon  as  the   foundation  was   thus   laid  for  a 


GERRY'S  HOUSE  AT  CAMBRIDGE 

government  which  should  act  directly  upon  individuals,  it 
obviously  became  necessary  to  abandon  the  articles  of  con 
federation,  and  work  out  a  new  constitution  in  all  its  details. 
The  plan,  as  now  reported,  omitted  the  obnoxious  adjective 
"national,"  and  spoke  of  the  federal  legislature  and  federal 
courts.  lBut  to  the  men  who  were  still  blindly  wedded  to 
the  old  confederation  this  soothing  change  of  phraseology 
did  not  conceal  their  defeat.  On  the  very  day  that  the 
compromise  was  favourably  reported  by  the  committee, 
Yates  and  Lansing  quit  the  convention  in  disgust,  and  went 
home  to  New  York.  After  the  departure  of  these  uncon- 


274 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 


genial  colleagues,  Hamilton  might  have  acted  with  power, 
had  he  not  known  too  well  that  the  sentiment  of  his  state 
did  not  support  him.  As  a  mere  individual  he  could  do  but 
little,  and  accordingly  he  went  home  for  a  while  to  attend 
to  pressing  business,  returning  just  in  time  to  take  part  in 
the  closing  scenes.  His  share  in  the  work  of 
bies  go  framing  the  Federal  Constitution  was  very  small. 
About  the  time  that  Hamilton  returned,  Luther 
Martin,  whose  wrath  had  waxed  hotter  every  day,  as  he  saw 
power  after  power  extended  to  the  federal  government,  at 
length  gave  way  and  went  back  to  Maryland,  vowing  that 
he  would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  such  high-handed 
proceedings. 

While  the  Connecticut  compromise  thus  scattered  a  few 
scintillations  of  discontent,  and  relieved  the  convention  of 
some  of  its  most  discordant  elements,  its  general  effect  was 
wonderfully  harmonizing.  The  men  who  had  opposed  the 
Virginia  plan  only  through  their  dread  of  the  larger  states 
were  now  more  than  conciliated,  v  The  concession  of  equal 
representation  in  the  Senate  turned  out  to  have  been  a  mas 
ter  stroke  of  diplomacy/  As  soon  as  the  little  states  were 
assured  of  an  equal  share  in  the  control  of  one  of  the  two 
central  legislative  bodies,  they  suddenly  forgot  their  scruples 
about  thoroughly  overhauling  the  government,  and  none 
were  readier  than  they  to  intrust  extensive  powers  to  the 
new  Congress.  Paterson  of  New  Jersey,  the  fiercest  oppo 
nent  of  the  Virginia  plan,  became  from  that  time  forth  to 
the  end  of  his  life  the  most  devoted  of  Federalists. 

That  first  step  which  proverbially  gives  the  most  trouble 
had  now  been  fairly  taken.  But  other  compromises  were 

needed  before  the  work  of  construction  could  pro- 
other  an-  ,      ,  n  .  i 

tagonisms ;  perly  be  carried  out.  As  the  antagonism  between 
great  and  small  states  disappeared  from  the  scene, 
other  antagonisms  appeared.  It  is  worth  noting 
that  just  for  a  moment  there  was  revealed  a  glim 
mering  of  jealousy  and  dread  on  the  part  of  the  eastern 
states  toward  those  of  which  the  foundations  were  laid  in 


dread  of 
the  future 
west 


1787  THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION  275 

the  northwestern  territory.  Many  people  in  New  England 
feared  that  their  children  would  be  drawn  westward  in  such 
numbers  as  to  create  immense  states  beyond  the  Ohio  ;  and 
thus  it  was  foreseen  that  the  relative  political  weight  of  New 
England  in  the  future  would  be  diminished.  To  a  certain 


extent  this  prediction  has  been  justified  by  events,  but 
Roger  Sherman  rightly  maintained  that  it  afforded  no  just 
grounds  for  dread.  King  and  Gerry  introduced  a  most 
illiberal  and  mischievous  motion,  that  the  total  number  of 
representatives  from  new  states  must  never  be  allowed  to 
exceed  the  total  number  from  the  original  thirteen.  Such 


2;6  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

an  arrangement,  which  would  surely  have  been  enough  to 
create  that  antagonism  between  east  and  west  which  it 
sought  to  forestall  and  avoid,  was  supported  by  Massachu 
setts  and  Connecticut,  with  Delaware  and  Maryland  ;  but  it 
was  defeated  by  the  combination  of  New  Jersey  with  the  four 
states  south  of  Maryland.  The  ground  was  thus  cleared  for 
a  very  different  kind  of  sectional  antagonism,  —  that  which, 
as  Madison  truly  said,  would  prove  the  most  deep-seated  and 
enduring  of  all,  —  the  antagonism  between  north  and  south. 
The  first  great  struggle  between  the  pro-slavery  and  anti- 
slavery  parties  began  in  the  Federal  Convention, 


o_ 

be-       and  it  resulted  in  the  first  two  of  the  long  series 

tween  slave  .  ...  . 

states  and  of  compromises  by  which  their  repressible  conflict 
was  postponed  until  the  north  had  waxed  strong 
enough  to  confront  the  dreaded  spectre  of  secession,  and, 
summoning  all  its  energies  in  one  stupendous  effort,  exor 
cise  it  forever.  From 
this  moment  down  to 
1865  we  shall  continu- 
ally  be  made  to  realize 
how  the  American  peo 
ple  had  entered  into  the 
shadow  of  the  coming 

Civil  War  before  they  had  fairly  emerged  from  that  of  the 
Revolution  ;  and  as  we  pass  from  scene  to  scene  of  the 
solemn  story,  we  shall  learn  how  to  be  forever  grateful  for 
the  sudden  and  final  clearing  of  the  air  wrought  by  that 
frightful  storm  which  men  not  yet  old  can  still  so  well 
remember. 

The  first  compromise  related  to  the  distribution  of  repre 
sentatives  between  north  and  south.  Was  representation  in 
the  lower  house  of  Congress  to  be  proportioned  to  wealth,  or 
to  population  ;  ^nd  if  the  latter,  were  all  the  inhabitants,  or 
only  all  the  free  inhabitants,  to  be  counted  ?  It  was  soon 
agreed  that  wealth  was  difficult  to  reckon  and  population 
easy  to  count  ;  and  to  an  extent  sufficient  for  all  ordinary 
purposes,  population  might  serve  as  an  index  of  wealth.  ^  A 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  277 

state  with  500,000  inhabitants  would  be  in  most  cases  richer 
than  one  with  400,000.  In  those  days,  when  cities  were 
few  and  small,  this  was  approximately  true.  In  our  day  it  is 
not  at  all  true.  A  state  with  large  commercial  and  manu 
facturing  cities  is  sure  to  be  much  richer  than  a  state  in 
which  the  population  is  chiefly  rural.  The  population  of 
Massachusetts  is  somewhat  smaller  than  that  of  Indiana ; 
but  her  aggregate  wealth  is  more  than  double  that  of  Indi 
ana.  Disparities  like  this,  which  do  not  trouble  us  to-day, 
would  have  troubled  the  Federal  Convention.  We  no  longer 
think  it  desirable  to  give  political  representation  to  wealth, 
or  to  anything  but  persons.  We  have  become  thoroughly 
democratic,  but  our  great-grandfathers  had  not.  To  them  it 
seemed  quite  essential  that  wealth  should  be  represented  as 
well  as  persons  ;  but  they  got  over  the  main  difficulty  easily, 
because  under  the  economic  conditions  of  that  time  popula 
tion  could  serve  roughly  as  an  index  to  wealth,  and  it  was 
much  easier  to  count  noses  than  to  assess  the  value  of  farms 
and  stock. 

But  now  there  was  in  all  the  southern  states,  and  in  most 
of  the  northern,  a  peculiar  species  of  collective  existence, 
which  might  be  described  either  as  wealth  or  as  _ 

Were  slaves 

population.  As  human  beings  the  slaves  might  be  to  be  reek- 
described  as  population,  but  in  the  eye  of  the  law  sons  or  asr" 
they  were  chattels.  In  the  northern  states  slavery  chatte 
was  rapidly  disappearing,  and  the  property  in  negroes  was 
so  small  as  to  be  hardly  worth  considering ;  while  south  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line  this  peculiar  kind  of  property  was 
the  chief  wealth  of  the  states.  But  clearly,  in  apportioning 
representation,  in  sharing  political  power  in  the  federal 
assembly,  the  same  rule  should  have  been  applied  impartially 
to  all  the  states.  At  this  point,  Pierce  Butler  and  Cotes- 
worth  Pinckney  of  South  Carolina  insisted  that  slaves  were 
part  of  the  population,  and  as  such  must  be  counted  in 
ascertaining  the  basis  of  representation.  A  fierce  and  com 
plicated  dispute  ensued.  The  South  Carolina  proposal  sug 
gested  a  uniform  rule,  but  it  was  one  that  would  scarcely 


278 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  VI 


alter  the  political  weight  of  the  north,  while  it  would  vastly 
increase  the  weight  of  the  south  ;  and  it  would  increase  it 
most  in  just  the  quarter  where  slavery  was  most  deeply 
rooted.  The  power  of  South  Carolina,  as  a  member  of  the 
Union,  would  be  doubled  by  such  a  measure.  Hence  the 

northern  delegates  main- 

j*®^,    >  tained    that     slaves,    as 

mj^  ^%  chattels,  ought  no  more 

to  be  reckoned  as  part 
of  the  population  than 
houses  or  ships.  "  Has 
a  man  in  Virginia,"  ex 
claimed  Paterson,  "  a 
number  of  votes  in  pro 
portion  to  the  number  of 
his  slaves  ?  And  if  ne 
groes  are  not  represented 
in  the  states  to  which 
they  belong,  why  should 
they  be  represented  in 
the  general  government  ? 
...  If  a  meeting  of  the 
people  were  to  take  place 
in  a  slave  state,  would  the 

slaves  vote  ?  They  would  not.  Why  then  should  they 
be  -represented  in  a  federal  government  ?  "  "I  can  never 
agree,"  said  Gouverneur  Morris,  "  to  give  such  encourage 
ment  to  the  slave-trade  as  would  be  given  by  allowing  the 
southern  states  a  representation  for  their  negroes.  ...  I 
would  sooner  submit  myself  to  a  tax  for  paying  for  all  the 
negroes  in  the  United  States  than  saddle  posterity  with  such 
a  constitution." 

The  attitude  taken  by  Virginia  was  that  of  peacemaker. 
On  the  one  hand,  such  men  as  Washington,  Madison,  and 
Mason,  who  were  earnestly  hoping  to  see  their  own  state 
soon  freed  from  the  curse  of  slavery,  could  not  fail  to  per 
ceive  that  if  Virginia  were  to  gain  an  increase  of  political 


178; 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


279 


weight  from  the  existence  of  that  institution,  the  difficulty  of 
getting  the  state  legislature  to  abolish  it  would  be  enhanced. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  saw  that  South  Carolina  was 
inexorable,  and  that  her  refusal  to  adopt  the  Constitution 
for  this  reason  would  certainly  carry  Georgia  with  her,  and 
probably  North  Carolina,  also.  Even  had  South  Carolina 
alone  been  involved,  it  was  not  simply  a  question  of  forming 


a  Union  which  should  either  include  her  or  leave  her  out  in 
the  cold.  The  case  was  much  more  complicated  than  that. 
It  was  really  doubtful  if,  without  the  cordial  assistance  of 
South  Carolina,  a  Union  could  be  formed  at  all.  A  Federal 
Constitution  had  not  only  to  be  framed,  but  it  had  to  be 
presented  to  the  thirteen  states  for  adoption.  It  was  by  no 


28o  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

means  clear  that  enough  states  would  ratify  it  to  enable  the 
experiment  of  the  new  government  to  go  into  operation. 
New  York  and  Rhode  Island  were  known  to  be  bitterly 
opposed  to  it  ;  Massachusetts  could  not  be  counted  on  as 
sure ;  to  add  South  Carolina  to  this  list  would  be  to  endan 
ger  everything.  The  event  justified  this  caution.  We  shall 
hereafter  see  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  satisfy 
South  Carolina,  and  that  but  for  her  ratification,  coming  just 
at  the  moment  when  it  did,  the  work  of  the  Federal  Conven 
tion  would  probably  have  been  done  in  vain.  It  was  a  clear 
perception  of  the  wonderful  complication  of  interests  involved 
in  the  final  appeal  to  the  people  that  induced  the  Virginia 
statesmen  to  take  the  lead  in  a  compromise.  Four  years 
before,  in  1783,  when  Congress  was  endeavouring  to  appor 
tion  the  quotas  of  revenue  to  be  required  of  the  several 
states,  a  similar  dispute  had  arisen.  If  taxation  were  to  be 
distributed  according  to  population,  it  made  a  great  difference 
whether  slaves  were  to  be  counted  as  population  or  not.  If 
slaves  were  to  be  counted,  the  southern  states  would  have 
to  pay  more  than  their  equitable  share  into  the  federal 
treasury ;  if  slaves  were  not  to  be  counted,  it  was  argued  at 
the  north  that  they  would  be  paying  less  than  their  equitable 
share.  Consequently,  at  that  time  the  north  had  been 
inclined  to  maintain  that  the  slaves  were  population,  while 
the  south  had  preferred  to  regard  them  as  chattels.  Thus 
we  see  that  in  politics,  as  well  as  in  algebra,  it  makes  all  the 
difference  in  the  world  'whether  you  start  with  phis  or  with 
minus.  On  that  occasion  Madison  had  offered  a  successful 
The  thre  compromise,  in  which  a  slave  figured  as  three  fifths 
fifths  com-  of  a  freeman  ;  and  Rutledge  of  South  Carolina,  who 
a  gentine  was  now  present  in  the  convention,  had  supported 
Sfution  if  tne  measure.  Madison  now  proposed  the  same 
ever  there  method  of  getting  over  the  difficulty  about  repre 
sentation,  and  his  compromise  was  adopted.  It  was 
agreed  that  in  counting  population,  whether  for  direct  taxa 
tion  or  for  representation  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress, 
five  slaves  should  be  reckoned  as  three  individuals.  / 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  281 

All  this  was  thoroughly  illogical,  of  course;  it  left  the 
question  whether  slaves  are  population  or  chattels  for  theo- 
rizers  to  wrangle  over,  and  for  future  events  to  decide.  ^  It 
was  easy  for  James  Wilson  to  show  that  there  was  neither 
rhyme  nor  reason  in  it  :  but  he  subscribed  to  it,  neverthe 
less,  just  as  the  northern  abolitionists,  Rufus  King  and 
Gouverneur  Morris,  joined  with  Washington  and  Madison, 
and  with  the  pro-slavery  Pinckneys,  in  subscribing  to  it, 
because  they  all  believed  that  without  such  a  compromise 
the  Constitution  would  not  be  adopted  ;  and  in  this  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  they  were  right.  The  evil  conse 
quences  were  unquestionably  very  serious  indeed.  Hence 
forth,  so  long  as  slavery  lasted,  the  vote  of  a  southerner 
counted  for  more  than  the  vote  of  a  northerner  ;  and  just 
where  negroes  were  most  numerous  the  power  of  their 
masters  became  greatest.  In  South  Carolina  there  soon 
came  to  be  more  blacks  than  whites,  and  the  application  of 
the  rule  therefore  went  far  toward  doubling  the  vote  of 
South  Carolina  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  in  the 
electoral  college.  Every  five  slaveholders  down  there  were 
equal  in  political  weight  to  not  less  than  eight  farmers  or 
merchants  in  the  north  ;  and  thus  this  troublesome  state 
acquired  a  power  of  working  mischief  out  of  all  proportion 
to  her  real  size.  At  a  later  date  the  operation  of  the  rule  in 
Mississippi  was  similar;  and  in  general  it  was  just  the  most 
backward  and  barbarous  parts  of  the  Union  that  were  thus 
favoured  at  the  expense  of  the  most  civilized  parts.  Admit 
ting  all  this,  however,  it  remains  undeniable  that 

In  other 

the  Constitution  saved  us  from  anarchy  ;  and  there  words,  it 
can  be  little  doubt  that  slavery  and  every  other  bXsohi- 
remnant  of  barbarism  in  American  society  would 


have  thriven  far  more  lustily  under  a  state  of  thecircum- 
chronic  anarchy  than  was  possible  under  the  Con 
stitution.  Four  years  of  concentrated  warfare,  animated  by 
an  intense  and  lofty  moral  purpose,  could  not  hurt  the  char 
acter  or  mar  the  fortunes  of  the  people,  like  a  century  of 
aimless  and  miscellaneous  squabbling  over  a  host  of  petty 


J 


282  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

local  interests.  The  War  of  Secession  was  a  terrible  ordeal 
to  pass  through  ;  but  when  one  tries  to  picture  what  might 
have  happened  in  this  fair  land  without  the  work  of  the 
Federal  Convention,  the  imagination  stands  aghast. 

The  second  great  compromise  between  northern  and 
Compro-  southern  interests  related  to  the  abolition  of  the 
™vetnbNew  f°reign  slave-trade  and  the  power  of  the  federal 
England  government  over  commerce.  All  the  states  ex- 

and  South      &  0         i      ^         v  T^  •  -11 

Carolina  cept  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  wished  to  stop 
foreign  &  the  importation  of  slaves  ;  but  the  physical  con- 


slave-trade  deigns  Of  rice  and  indigo  culture  exhausted  the 
negroes  so  fast  that  these  two  states  felt  that  their  indus 
tries  would  be  dried  up  at  the  very  source  if  the  importation 
of  fresh  negroes  were  to  be  stopped.  Cotesworth  Pinckney 
accordingly  declared  that  South  Carolina  would  consider  a 
vote  to  abolish  the  slave-trade  as  simply  a  polite  way  of  tell 
ing  her  that  she  was  not  wanted  in  the  Union.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  three  New  England  states  present  in  the 
convention  had  made  up  their  minds  that  it  would  not  do 
to  allow  the  several  states  any  longer  to  regulate  commerce 
each  according  to  its  own  whim.  It  was  of  vital  importance 
that  this  power  should  be  taken  from  the  states  and  lodged 
in  Congress  ;  otherwise,  the  Union  would  soon  be  rent  in 
pieces  by  commercial  disputes.  The  policy  of  New  York 
had  thoroughly  impressed  this  lesson  upon  all  the  neigh 
bouring  states.  But  none  of  the  southern  states  were  in 
favour  of  granting  this  power  unreservedly  to  Congress.  If 
a  navigation  act  could  be  passed  by  a  simple  majority  in  Con 
gress,  it  was  feared  that  the  New  Englanders  would  get  all 
the  carrying  trade  into  their  own  hands,  and  then  charge 
ruinous  freights  for  carrying  rice,  indigo,  and  tobacco  to 
the  north  and  to  Europe.  On  this  point,  accordingly,  the 
southern  delegates  acted  as  a  unit  in  insisting  that  Congress 
should  not  be  empowered  to  regulate  commerce,  except  by 
a  two  thirds  vote  of  both  houses.  The  New  Englanders 
insisted  that  such  a  restriction  would  tie  the  hands  of  the 
federal  government  most  unfortunately.  But  if  a  tariff  act 


1 787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


283 


-  > 


could  be  passed  by  a  simple  majority,  it  was  feared  that  we 
should  come  to  see  —  well,  just  what  we  have  come  to  see  ; 
the  shameful  system  of  wholesale  robbery  upon  which  Con 
gress  had  entered  by  1828,  and  which  during  the  last  thirty 
years  has  been  growing  ever  more  cynical,  ruthless,  and 
base.  Here  were  the  materials  ready  for  a  compromise,  or, 
as  the  stout  abolitionist,  Gouverneur  Morris,  truly  called  it,  a 
"bargain  "  between  New  England  and  the  far  south.  New 
Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  and  Connecticut  consented  to 
the  prolonging/ of  the  foreign  slave-trade  for  twenty  years, 
or  until  i8o8pand  in  return  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
consented  to  the  clause  empowering  Congress  to  pass  navi- 


284  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

gation  acts  and  otherwise  regulate  commerce  by  a  simple 
majority  of  votes.  At  the  same  time,  as  a  concession  to 
rice  and  indigo,  the  New  Englanders  agreed  that  Congress 
should  be  forever  prohibited  from  taxing  exports  ;  and  thus 
one  remnant  of  mediaeval  political  economy  was  neatly 
swept  away. 

This  compromise  was  carried  against  the  sturdy  opposition 
of  Virginia.     The  language  of  George  Mason  of  Virginia  is 
worth  quoting,  for  it  was  such  as  Theodore   Parker  might 
have  used.     He  called  the  slave-trade  "this  infernal  traffic." 
"  Slavery,"  said  he,  "discourages  arts  anct  manufac- 
tures.     The  poor  despise  labour  when  performed 


Y   slaves-      They    prevent    the    immigration    of 
theadhe-     whites,  who  really  strengthen  and  enrich  a  coun- 

sion  of  J 

Virginia       try.     They  produce  the  most  pernicious  effect  on 

doubtful  J  L.  r      i  •       t, 

manners.  Every  master  of  slaves  is  born  a  petty 
tyrant.  They  bring  the  judgment  of  Heaven  on  a  country. 
As  nations  cannot  be  rewarded  or  punished  in  the  next 
world,  they  must  be  in  this.  By  an  inevitable  chain  of 
causes  and  effects,  Providence  punishes  national  sins  by 
national  calamities."  But  these  prophetic  words  were  pow 
erless  against  the  combination  of  New  England  with  the  far 
south.  One  thing  was  now  made  certain,  —  that  the  vast 
influence  of  Rutledge  and  the  Pinckneys  would  be  thrown 
unreservedly  in  behalf  of  the  new  Constitution.  "  I  will 
confess,"  said  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  "that  I  had  prejudices 
against  the  eastern  states  before  I  came  here,  but  I  have 
found  them  as  liberal  and  candid  as  any  men  whatever." 
But  this  compromise,  which  finally  secured  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia,  made  Virginia  for  the  moment  doubtful  ;  for 
Mason  and  Randolph  were  so  disgusted  at  the  absolute 
power  over  commerce  conceded  to  Congress  that,  when  the 
Constitution  was  finished  and  engrossed  on  paper,  they 
refused  to  sign  it. 

It  is  difficult  to  read  this  or  any  other  episode  in  our 
history  whereby  negro  slavery  was  extended  and  fostered 
without  burning  indignation.  But  this  is  not  the  proper 


\ 


y 
K 


\ 

i 


288  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

disturbance  ;  and  this  opinion  was  distinctly  set  forth  by 
many  delegates  in  the  convention.1  Even  Charles  Pinckney 
went  so  far  as  to  express  a  hope  that  South  Carolina,  if  not 
too  much  meddled  with,  would  by  and  by  voluntarily  rank 
herself  among  the  emancipating  states  ;  but  his  older  cousin 
declared  himself  bound  in  candour  to  acknowledge  that  there 
was  very  little  likelihood  indeed  of  so  desirable  an  event. 
Not  even  these  South  Carolinians  ventured  to  defend  slavery 
on  principle.  This  belief  in  the  moribund  condition  of 
slavery  prevented  the  convention  from  realizing  the  actual 
effect  of  the  concessions  which  were  made.  Very  little 
cotton  was  grown  at  that  time,  and  none  was  sent  to  Eng 
land.  The  industrial  revolution  about  to  be  wrought  by  the 
inventions  of  Arkwright  and  Hargreaves,  Cartwright  and 
Watt  and  Whitney,  could  not  be  foreseen.  Nor  could  it  be 
foreseen  that  presently,  when  there  should  thus  arise  a  great 
demand  for  slaves  from  Virginia  as  a  breeding-ground,  the 
abolitionist  party  in  that  state  would  disappear,  leaving  her 
to  join  in  the  odious  struggle  for  introducing  slavery  into  the 
national  domain.  Though  these  things  were  so  soon  to  hap 
pen,  the  wisest  man  in  1787  could  not  foresee  them.  The 
convention  hoped  that  twenty  years  would  see  not  only  the 
end  of  the  foreign  slave-trade,  but  the  restriction  and  dim 
inution  of  slavery  itself.  It  was  in  such  a  mood  that  they 
completed  the  compromise  by  recommending  a  tariff  of  ten 
dollars  a  head  upon  all  negroes  imported,  while  at  the  same 
time  a  clause  was  added  for  insuring  the  recovery  of  fugitive 

1  The  slave-population  of  the  United  States,  according  to  the  census 
of  1790,  was  thus  distributed  among  the  states  :  — 

North  South 

New  Hampshire 158     Delaware 8,887 

Vermont 17     Maryland 103,036 

Massachusetts Virginia 293,427 

Rhode  Island 952     North  Carolina 100,572 

Connecticut       2,759     South  Carolina 107,094 

New  York 21,324     Georgia 29,264 

New  Jersey        11,423     Kentucky 11,830 

Pennsylvania 3,737     Tennessee.* 3,417 

40,370  657,527 

Total 697,897 


78; 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


289 


slaves,  quite  similar  to  the  clause  in  the  ordinance  for  the 
government  of  the  northwestern  territory. 

It  was  the  three  great  compromises  here  described  that 
laid  the  foundations  of  our  Federal  Constitution.     The  first 
compromise,  by  conceding  equal  representation  to  the  states 
in  the  Senate,  enlisted  the  small  states  in  favour  of   The  foun. 
the  new  scheme,  and  by  establishing  a  national  sys-  ^<f constfi 
tern  of  representation  in  the  lower  house,  prepared   tution  were 
the  way  for  a  government  that  could  endure.     This   compro^  " 
was  Madison's  great  victory,  secured  by  the  aid  of   mise 
Sherman  and  Ellsworth,  without  which  nothing  could  have 


GUNSTON    HALL,   VIRGINIA:   MASON'S   HOME 

been  effected.  The  second  compromise,  at  the  cost  of  giv 
ing  disproportionate  weight  to  the  slave  states,  gained  their 
support  for  the  more  perfect  union  that  was  about  to  be 
formed.  The  third  compromise,  at  the  cost  of  postponing 
for  twenty  years  the  abolition  of  the  foreign  slave-trade, 


-90  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

secured  absolute  free-trade  between  the  states,  with  the  sur 
render  of  all  control  over  commerce  into  the  hands  of  the 
federal  government.  After  these  steps  had  been  taken,  the 
most  difficult  and  dangerous  part  of  the  road  had  been 
travelled  ;  the  remainder,  though  extremely  important,  was 
accomplished  far  more  easily.  It  was  mainly  the  task  of 
building  on  the  foundations  already  laid. 

In  the  grants  to  the  federal  government  of  powers  hitherto 
reserved  to  the  several  states,  the  diversity  of  opinion  among 
the  members  of  the  convention  was  but  slight  compared  to 
the  profound  antagonism  which  had  been  allayed  by  the 
three  initial  compromises.  It  was  admitted,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  that  the  federal  government  alone  could  coin  money, 
Powers  fix  the  standard  of  weights  and  measures,  establish 
fheTederai  post-offices  and  post-roads,  and  grant  patents  and 
government  copyrights.  To  it  alone  was  naturally  intrusted 
the  whole  business  of  war  and  of  international  relations.  It 
could  define  and  punish  felonies  committed  on  the  high  seas  ; 
it  could  maintain  a  navy  and  issue  letters  of  marque  and 
reprisal;  it  could  support  an  army  and  provide  for  calling 
forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  Union,  to  sup 
press  insurrections,  and  to  repel  invasions.  But  in  relation 
to  this  question  of  the  army  and  the  militia  there  was  some 
characteristic  discussion.  It  was  at  first  proposed  that  Con 
gress  should  have  the  power  "  to  subdue  a  rebellion  in  any 
state  on  the  application  of  its  legislature."  The  Shays 
rebellion  was  then  fresh  in  the  memory  of  all  the  delegates, 
and  their  arguments  simply  reflected  the  impression  which 
that  unpleasant  affair  had  left  upon  them.  Charles  Pinck- 
ney,  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  John  Langdon  wished  to  have 
the  power  given  to  Congress  unconditionally,  without  waiting 
for  an  application  from  the  legislature.  But  Gerry,  who  had 
been  on  the  ground,  spoke  sturdily  against  such  a  needless 
infraction  of  state  rights.  He  was  utterly  opposed,  he  said, 
to  ''letting  loose  the  myrmidons  of  the  United  States  on  a 
state  without  its  own  consent.  The  states  will  be  the  best 
judges  in  such  cases.  More  blood  would  have  been  spilt  in 


1787  THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION  291 

Massachusetts  in  the  late  insurrection  if  the  general  author 
ity  had  intermeddled."  Ellsworth  suggested  that  Congress 
should  use  its  discretion  only  in  cases  where  the  legislature 
of  the  state  could  not  meet ;  but  Randolph  forcibly  replied 
that  if  Congress  is  to  judge  whether  a  state  legislature  can 
or  cannot  meet,  the  difficulty  is  in  no  wise  surmounted. 


Gerry's  view  at  last  prevailed,  and  in  accordance  therewith 
it  was  decided  that  the  federal  power  should  guarantee  to 
every  state  a  republican  form  of  government,  and  should  pro 
tect  each  of  them  against  invasion ;  and  on  application  of 
the  legislature,  or  of  the  executive  (if  the  legislature  could 
not  be  convened),  it  should  protect  them  against  domestic 
violence.  This  arrangement  did  not  fully  provide  against 
such  an  emergency  as  that  of  rival  and" hostile  executives  in 
the  same  state,  as  under  the  so-called  "  carpet-bag  "  govern- 


292  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

ments  which  followed  after  the  War  of  Secession,  but  it  was 
doubtless  as  sound  a  provision  as  any  general  constitution 
could  make. 

The  federal  government  was  further  empowered  to  bor 
row  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States ;  and  it  was 
declared  that  all  debts  contracted  and  engagements  entered 
into  before  the  adoption  of  this  constitution  should  be  as 
valid  against  the  United  States  under  this  constitution  as 
under  the  confederation.  There  was  to  be  no  repudiation 
or  readjustment  of  debts  on  the  ground  of  inability  to  pay. 
Congress  was  further  empowered  to  establish  a  uniform  rule 
of  naturalization  and  a  uniform  law  of  bankruptcy.  But  it 
was  prohibited  from  passing  bills  of  attainder  or  ex  post  facto 
laws,  or  suspending  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  except  under 
the  stress  of  rebellion  or  invasion.  It  was  provided  that 
all  duties,  imposts,  or  excises  should  be  uniform  throughout 
the  United  States.  The  federal  government  could  not  give 
preference  to  one  state  over  another  in  its  commercial  regu 
lations.  It  could  not  tax  exports.  It  could  not  draw  money 
from  the  treasury  save  by  due  process  of  appropriation,  and 
all  bills  relating  to  the  raising  of  revenue  must  originate 
in  the  lower  house,  which  directly  represented  the  people. 
Congress  was  empowered  to  admit  new  states  into  the 
Union,  but  it  was  not  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  territo 
rial  areas  of  states  already  existing  without  the  express  con 
sent  of  the  local  legislatures.  To  insure  the  independence 
of  the  federal  government,  it  was  provided  that  senators  and 
representatives  should  be  paid  out  of  the  federal  treasury, 
and  not  by  their  respective  states,  as  had  been  the  case 
under  the  confederation.  Except  for  such  offences  as  trea 
son,  felony,  or  breach  of  the  peace,  they  should  be  "  privi 
leged  from  arrest  during  their  attendance  at  the  session  of 
their  respective  houses,  and  in  going  to  or  returning  from 
the  same;  and  for  any  speech  or  debate  in  either  house" 
they  were  not  to  be  "  questioned  in  any  other  place."  It 
was  further  provided  that  a  territory  not  exceeding  ten 
miles  square  should  be  ceded  to  the  United  States,  and  set 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  293 

apart  as  the  site  of  a  federal  city,  in  which  the  general  gov 
ernment  should  ever  after  hold  its  meetings,  erect  its  build 
ings,  and  exercise  exclusive  jurisdiction.  During  the  past 
four  years  the  Continental  Congress  had  skipped  about 
from  Philadelphia  to  Princeton,  to  Annapolis,  to  Trenton,  to 
New  York,  until  it  had  become  a  laughing-stock,  and  the 
newspapers  were  full  of  squibs  about  it.  Verily,  said  one 
facetious  editor,  the  Lord  shall  make  this  government  like 
unto  a  wheel,  and  keep  it  rolling  back  and  forth  betwixt 
Dan  and  Beersheba,  and  grant  it  no  rest  this  side  of  Jordan. 
This  inconvenience  was  now  to  be  remedied.  Congress 
was  hereafter  to  have  a  federal  police  force  at  its  disposal, 
and  was  never  more  to  be  reduced  to  the  humiliation  of  a 
fruitless  appeal  to  the  protecting  arm  of  a  state  government, 
as  at  Philadelphia  in  the  summer  of  1783.  Furthermore, 
the  Continental  Congress  had  of  late  years  commanded  so 
little  respect,  and  had  offered  so  few  temptations  to  able 
men  in  quest  of  political  distinction,  that  its  meetings  were 
often  attended  by  no  more  than  eight  or  ten  members.  It 
was  actually  on  the  point  of  dying  a  natural  death  through 
sheer  lack  of  public  interest  in  it.  To  prevent  any  possible 
continuance  of  such  a  disgraceful  state  of  things,  it  was 
agreed  that  the  Federal  Congress  should  be  "  authorized  to 
compel  the  attendance  of  absent  members,  in  such  manner 
and  under  such  penalties  as  each  house  may  provide."  Had 
the  political  life  of  the  country  continued  to  go  on  as  under 
the  confederation,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  such  a  provi 
sion  as  this  would  have  remedied  the  evil.  But  the  new 
Federal  Congress,  drawing  its  life  directly  from  the  people, 
was  destined  to  afford  far  greater  opportunities  for  a  politi 
cal  career  than  were  afforded  by  the  feeble  body  of  dele 
gates  which  preceded  it ;  and  a  penal  clause,  compelling 
members  to  attend  its  meetings,  was  hardly  needed  under 
the  new  circumstances  which  arose. 

While  the  powers  of  the  federal  government  were  thus 
carefully  denned,  at  the  same  time  several  -powers  were  ex 
pressly  denied  to  the  states.  No  state  was  allowed,  without 


294  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

explicit  authority  from  Congress,  to  lay  any  tonnage  or  cus- 
torruhouse  duties,  "  keep  troops  or  ships  of  war  in 

Powers 

denied  to  time  of  peace,  enter  into  any  agreement  or  com 
pact  with  another  state  or  with  a  foreign  power, 
or  engage  in  war  unless  actually  invaded,  or  in  such  immi 
nent  danger  as  will  not  admit  of  delays."  The  following 
clause  provided  against  a  recurrence  of  some  of  the  worst 
evils  which  had  been  felt  under  the  "  league  of  friendship  :  " 
"  No  state  shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  confeder 
ation  ;  grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal ;  coin  money ; 
emit  bills  of  credit ;  make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin 
a  tender  in  payment  of  debts  ;  pass  any  bill  of  attainder,  ex 
post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts  ; 
or  grant  any  title  of  nobility."  Henceforth  there  was  to  be 
no  repetition  of  such  disgraceful  scenes  as  had  lately  been 
witnessed  in  Rhode  Island.  So  far  as  the  state  legislatures 
were  concerned,  paper  money  was  to  be  ruled  out  forever. 
But  how  was  it  with  the  federal  government  ?  By  the  arti 
cles  of  confederation  the  United  States  were  allowed  to 
issue  bills  of  credit,  and  make  them  a  tender  in  payment  of 
debts.  In  the  Federal  Convention  the  committee  of  detail 
suggested  that  this  permission  might  remain  under  the  new 
constitution ;  but  the  suggestion  was  almost  unanimously 
condemned.  All  the  ablest  men  in  the  convention  spoke 
emphatically  against  it.  Gouverneur  Morris  urged  that  the 
Emphatic  federal  government,  no  less  than  the  state  govern- 
condemna-  ments,  should  be  expressly  prohibited  from  issuing 

tionof  '  .   *  .& 

paper  bills  of  credit,  or  in  any  wise  making  its  promis 

sory  notes  a  legal  tender.  He  went  over  the 
history  of  the  past  ten  years  ;  he  called  attention  to  the 
obstinacy  with  which  the  wretched  device  had  been  resorted 
to  again  and  again,  after  its  evils  had  been  thrust  before 
everybody's  eyes  ;  and  he  proved  himself  a  true  prophet 
when  he  said  that  if  the  United  States  should  ever  again 
have  a  great  war  to  conduct,  people  would  have  forgotten 
all  about  these  things,  and  would  call  for  fresh  issues  of 
inconvertible  paper,  with  similar  disastrous  results.  Now 


1 787 


THE    FEDERAL    CONVENTION 


295 


was  the  time  to  stop  it  once  for  all.  "Yes,"  echoed  Roger 
Sherman,  "this  is  the  favourable  crisis  for  crushing  paper 
money."  "  This  is  the  time,"  said  his  colleague,  Ellsworth, 
"to  shut  and  bar  the  door  against  paper  money,  which  can 
in  no  case  be  necessary.  Give  the  government  credit,  and 
other  resources  will  offer.  The  power  may  do  harm,  never 
good."  There  was  no 
way,  he  added,  in  which 
powerful  friends  could  so 
soon  be  gained  for  the 
new  constitution  as  by 
withholding  this  power 
from  the  government. 
James  Wilson  took  the 
same  view.  "  It  will  have 
the  most  salutary  influ 
ence  on  the  credit  of  the 
United  States,"  said  he, 
"to  remove  the  possi 
bility  of  paper  money." 
"  Rather  than  grant  the 
power  to  Congress,"  said 
John  Langdon,  "  I  would 
reject  the  whole  plan." 
"  The  words  which  grant 
this  power,"  said  George 
Read  of  Delaware,  "  if  not 

struck  out,  will  be  as  alarming  as  the  mark  of  the  Beast  in 
the  Apocalypse."  On  none  of  the  subjects  that  came  up 
for  discussion  during  that  summer  was  the  convention  more 
nearly  unanimous  than  in  its  condemnation  of  paper  money. 
The  only  delegate  who  ventured  to  speak  in  its  favour  was 
Mercer  of  Maryland.  What  Hamilton  would  have  said,  if 
he  had  been  present  that  day,  we  may  judge  from  his  vig 
orous  words  published  some  time  before.  The  power  to 
emit  an  inconvertible  paper  as  a  sign  of  value  ought  never 
hereafter  to  be  used  ;  for  in  its  very  nature,  said  he,  it  is 


296  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

"pregnant  with  abuses,  and  liable  to  be  made  the  engine  of 
imposition  and  fraud,  holding  out  temptations  equally  per 
nicious  to  the  integrity  of  government  and  to  the  morals 
of  the  people."  Paterson  called  it  "  sanctifying  iniquity  by 
law."  The  same  views  were  entertained  by  Washington 
and  Madison.  There  were  a  few  delegates,  however,  who 
thought  it  unsafe  to  fetter  Congress  absolutely.  To  use 
Luther  Martin's  expression,  they  did  not  set  themselves  up 
to  be  "  wise  beyond  every  event."  George  Mason  said  he 
"  had  a  mortal  hatred  to  paper  money,  yet,  as  he  could  not 
foresee  all  emergencies,  he  was  unwilling  to  tie  the  hands  of 
the  legislature.  The  late  war,"  he  thought,  "could  not  have 
been  carried  on  had  such  a  prohibition  existed."  Randolph 
spoke  to  the  same  effect.  Such  opinions  were  common 
then,  and  are  common  now  ;  though  to  any  one  who  has 
carefully  studied  our  financial  history  it  is  quite  clear  that 
both  in  the  War  of  Independence  and  in  the  War  of  Seces 
sion  legal-tender  notes  were  not  a  help  but  a  most  baneful 
encumbrance. 

It  was  finally  decided,  by  the  vote  of  nine  states  against 
New  Jersey  and  Maryland,  that  the  power  to  issue  incon 
vertible  paper  should  not  be  granted  to  the  federal  govern 
ment.  An  express  prohibition,  such  as  had  been  adopted 
for  the  separate  states,  was  thought  unnecessary.  It  was 
supposed  that  it  was  enough  to  withhold  the  power,  since 
the  federal  government  would  not  venture  to  exercise  it 
unless  expressly  permitted  in  the  Constitution.  "  Thus," 
says  Madison,  in  his  narrative  of  the  proceedings,  "  the  pre 
text  for  a  paper  currency,  and  particularly  for  making  the 
bills  a  tender,  either  for  public  or  private  debts,  was  cut 
off."  Nothing  could  be  more  clearly  expressed  than  this. 
As  Mr.  Justice  Field  observes,  in  his  able  dissenting  opinion 
in  the  recent  case  of  Juilliard  vs.  Greenman,  "if  there  be 
anything  in  the  history  of  the  Constitution  which  can  be 
established  with  moral  certainty,  it  is  that  the  framers  of 
that  instrument  intended  to  prohibit  the  issue  of  legal-tender 
notes  both  by  the  general  government  and  by  the  states, 


1787  THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION  297 

and  thus  prevent  interference  with  the  contracts  of  private 
parties."  Such  has  been  the  opinion  of  our  ablest  constitu 
tional  jurists,  Marshall,  Webster,  Story,  Curtis,  and  Nelson. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  according  to  all  sound  prin 
ciples  of  interpretation,  the  Legal  Tender  Act  of  1862  was 
passed  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  Constitution.  Could  Ells 
worth  and  Morris,  Langdon  and  Madison,  have  foreseen  the 
possibility  of  such  extraordinary  judgments  as  have  lately 
emanated  from  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
they  would  doubtless  have  insisted  upon  the  express  pro 
hibition,  instead  of  leaving  it  to  posterity  to  root  out  the 
plague,  as  it  will  apparently  some  time  have  to  do,  by  the 
cumbrous  process  of  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution. 

The  work  of  the  convention,  as  thus  far  considered, 
related  to  the  legislative  department  of  the  new  government. 
While  these  discussions  were  going  on,  much  attention  had 
been  paid,  from  time  to  time,  to  the  characteristics  of  the 
proposed  federal  executive.  The  debates  on  this  question, 
though  long  kept  up,  were  far  less  acrimonious  than  the 
debates  on  representation  and  the  power  of  Congress  over 
trade,  because  here  there  was  no  obvious  clashing  of  local 
interests.  But  for  this  very  reason  the  convention  had  no 
longer  so  clear  a  chart  to  steer  by.  On  the  question  of  the 
slave-trade,  the  Pinckneys  knew  accurately  just  what  South 
Carolina  wanted,  how  much  it  would  do  to  claim,  and  how 
far  it  would  be  necessary  to  yield.  As  to  the  regulation  of 
commerce  by  a  bare  majority  of  votes  in  Congress,  King  and 
Sherman  on  the  one  hand,  Mason  and  Randolph  on  the 
other,  were  able  to  pursue  a  thoroughly  definite  course  of 
action  in  behalf  of  what  were  supposed  to  be  the  special 
interests  of  New  England  or  of  Virginia.  Consequently,  the 
debates  kept  close  to  the  point ;  the  controversy  was  keen, 
and  sometimes,  as  we  have  seen,  angry. 

It  was  very  different  with  the  question  as  to  the  federal 
executive.  Upon  this  point  the  discussions  were  guided 
rather  by  general  speculations  as  to  what  would  be  most 
likely  to  work  well,  and  accordingly  they  wandered  far  and 


298  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

wide.  Some  of  the  delegates  seemed  to  think  we  should 
sooner  or  later  come  to  adopt  a  hereditary  monarchy,  and 
that  the  chief  thing  to  be  done  was  to  postpone  the  event 
as  long  as  possible.  Many  wild  ideas  were  broached  :  such, 
for  example,  as  a  triple-headed  executive,  to  represent  the 
Debates  as  eastern,  middle,  and  southern  states,  somewhat  as 
eraihexecu-  associated  Roman  emperors  at  times  administered 
tive  affairs  in  the  different  portions  of  an  undivided 

empire.  The  Virginia  plan  had  not  stated  whether  its  pro 
posed  executive  was  to  be  single  or  plural,  because  the  Vir 
ginia  delegates  could  not  agree.  Madison  wished  it  to  be 
single,  to  insure  greater  efficiency,  but  to  Randolph  and 
Mason  a  tyranny  seemed  to  lurk  in  such  an  arrangement. 
When  James  Wilson  and  Charles  Pinckney  suggested  that 
the  executive  power  should  be  intrusted  into  the  hands  of 
one  man,  a  profound  silence  fell  upon  the  convention.  No 
one  spoke  for  several  minutes,  until  Washington,  from  the 
chair,  asked  if  he  should  put  the  question.  Franklin  then 
got  up,  and  said  it  was  an  interesting  subject,  and  he  should 
like  to  hear  what  the  members  had  to  say  ;  and  so  the  ball 
was  set  rolling.  Rutledge  said  there  was  no  need  of  their 
being  so  shy.  A  man  might  frankly  express  his  opinions, 
and  afterwards  change  them  if  he  saw  good  reason  for  so 
doing.  For  his  part,  he  was  in  favour  of  vesting  the  execu 
tive  power  in  a  single  person,  to  secure  efficiency  of  admin 
istration  and  concentration  of  responsibility ;  but  he  would 
not  give  him  the  power  to  declare  war  and  make  peace. 
Sherman  then  made  the  far-reaching  suggestion,  that  the 
executive  magistracy  was  really  "  nothing  more  than  an 
institution  for  carrying  the  will  of  the  legislature  into  effect  ; 
that  the  person  or  persons  ought  to  be  appointed  by  and 
accountable  to  the  legislature  only,  which  was  the  depository 
of  the  supreme  will  of  the  society.  As  they  were  the  best 
judges  of  the  business  which  ought  to  be  done  by  the  execu 
tive  department,  ...  he  wished  the  number  might  not  be 
fixed,  but  that  the  legislature  should  be  at  liberty  to  appoint 
one  or  more,  as  experience  might  dictate."  It  would  greatly 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


301 


again  confronted  the  diffi 
culty  of  the  chief  magis 
trate's  intriguing  to  secure 
his  reelection.  Wilson 
thought  to  do  away  with 
this  difficulty  by  introdu 
cing  the  element  of  blind 
chance,  as  in  some  of  the 
states  of  ancient  Greece, 
and  choosing  the  executive 
by  a  board  of  electors  taken 
from  Congress  by  lot ; 
but  the  suggestion  found 
little  support.  Dickinson 
thought  it  would  be  well 
if  the  people  of  each  state 
were  to  choose  its  best 
citizen,  —  in  modern  par 
lance,  its  "  favourite  son  ;  " 

then  out  of  these  thirteen  names  a  chief  magistrate  might 
be  chosen,  either  by  Congress  or  by  a  special  board  of  elec 
tors.  At  length,  on  the  26th  of  July,  at  the  motion  of 
Mason,  the  convention  resolved  that  there  should  be  a 
national  executive,  to  consist  of  a  single  person,  to  be  chosen 
by  the  national  legislature  for  the  term  of  seven  years,  and 
to  be  ineligible  for  a  second  term.  He  was  to  be  styled 
President  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

This  decision  remained  until  the  very  end  of  August, 
when  the  whole  question  was  reopened  by  a  motion  of  Rut- 
ledge  that  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  in  electing  the  presi 
dent,  should  proceed  by  "joint  ballot."  The  object  of  this 
motion  was  to  prevent  either  house  from  exerting  a  negative 
on  the  choice  of  the  other.  It  was  carried  in  spite  of  the 
opposition  of  some  of  the  smaller  states,  which  might  hope 
to  exercise  a  greater  relative  influence  upon  the  choice  of 
presidents,  if  the  Senate  were  to  vote  separately.  At  this 
point  the  fears  of  Gouverneur  Morris,  that  an  election  by 


302  THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

Congress  would  result  in  boundless  intrigue,  were  revived  ; 
and  in  a  powerful  speech  he  persuaded  the  convention  to 
return  to  the  device  of  the  electoral  college,  which  might 
be  made  equal  in  number  and  similar  in  composition  to  the 
two  houses  of  Congress  sitting  together.  It  need  not  be 
required  of  the  electors,  after  all,  that  they  should  make  a 
long  journey  to  the  seat  of  the  federal  government.  They 
might  meet  in  their  respective  states,  and  vote  by  ballot  for 
two  persons,  one  of  whom  must  be  an  inhabitant  of  a  differ 
ent  state.  By  this  provision  it  was  hoped  to  diminish  the 
chances  for  extreme  sectional  partiality.  A  list  of  these 
votes  might  be  sent  under  seal  to  the  presiding  officer  of  the 
Senate,  to  be  counted.  Should  no  candidate  turn  out  to 
have  a  majority  of  the  votes,  the  Senate  might  choose  a 
president  from  the  five  highest  candidates  on  the  list.  The 
candidate  having  the  next  highest  number  of  votes  might  be 
declared  vice-president,  and  preserve  the  visible  continuity 
of  the  government  in  case  of  the  death  of  the  president 
during  his  term  of  office.  By  these  changes  the  method  of 
electing  the  president,  as  finally  decided  upon,  was  nearly 
completed.  But  Mason,  Randolph,  Gerry,  King,  and  Wil 
son  were  not  satisfied  with  the  provision  that  the  Senate 
might  choose  the  president  in  case  of  a  failure  of  choice  on 
the  part  of  the  electoral  college  :  they  preferred  to  give  this 
power  to  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  was  thought 
that  the  Senate  would  be  likely  to  prove  an  aristocratic 
body,  somewhat  removed  from  the  people  in  its  sympathies, 
and  there  was  a  dread  of  intrusting  to  it  too  many  impor 
tant  functions.  Mason  thought  that  the  sway  of  an  aristo 
cracy  would  be  worse  than  an  absolute  monarchy  ;  and  if 
the  Senate  might  every  now  and  then  elect  the  president, 
there  would  be  a  risk  that  the  dignity  of  his  office  might 
degenerate,  until  he  should  become  a  mere  creature  of  the 
Senate.  On  the  other  hand,  the  small  states,  in  order  to 
have  an  equal  voice  with  the  large  ones,  in  such  an  emer 
gency  as  the  failure  of  choice  by  the  electoral  college, 
wished  to  keep  the  eventual  choice  in  the  hands  of  the 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


303 


Senate.  Among  the  delegates  from  the  small  states,  only 
Langdon  and  Dickinson  at  first  supported  the  change,  and 
only  New  Hampshire  voted  for  it.  At  length  Sherman  pro 
posed  a  compromise,  which  was  carried.  It  was  agreed  that 
the  eventual  choice  should  be  given  to  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  and  not  to  the  Senate,  but  that  in  exercising  this 
function  the  vote  in  the  House  of  Representatives  should  be 
taken  by  states.  Thus  the  humours  of  the  delegates  from 


the  small  states,  and  of  those  who  dreaded  the  accumulation 
of  powers  into  the  hands  of  an  oligarchy,  were  alike  grati 
fied.  This  arrangement  was  finally  adopted  by  the  votes  of 
ten  states  against  Delaware. 

But  in  spite  of  all  the  minute  and  anxious  care  that  was 
taken  in  guarding  this  point,  the  contingency  of  an  election 


304  THE   CRITICAL  PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

being  thus  thrown  into  the  hands  of  the  national  legislature 
was  not  regarded  as  likely  often  to  occur.  In  point  of  fact, 
it  has  hitherto  happened  only  twice  in  the  century,  in  the 
elections  of  1800  and  of  1824.  It  was  recognized  that  the 
work  would  ordinarily  be  done  through  the  machinery  of 
the  electoral  college,  and  that  thus  the  fear  of  intrigue 
between  the  president  and  Congress,  as  it  had  originally 
been  felt  by  the  convention,  might  be  set  aside.  To  make 
assurance  doubly  sure,  it  was  provided  that  "  no  person  shall 
be  appointed  an  elector  who  is  a  member  of  the  legislature 
of  the  United  States,  or  who  holds  any  office  of  profit  or 
trust  under  the  United  States."  It  then  appeared  that  the 
arguments  which  had  been  alleged  against  the  eligibility  of 
the  president  for  a  second  term  had  lost  their  force  ;  and 
he  was  accordingly  made  reeligible,  while  his  term  of  ser 
vice  was  reduced  from  seven  years  to  four. 

The  scheme  had  thus  arrived  substantially  at  its  present 
shape,  except  that  the  counting  of  the  electoral  vote  still 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Senate.  On  the  6th  of  Sep 
tember  this  provision  was  altered,  and  it  was  decided  that 
"the  president  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives,  open 

How  to 

count  the  all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be 
counted."  The  object  of  this  provision  was  to 
take  the  office  of  counting  away  from  the  Senate  alone,  and 
give  it  to  Congress  as  a  whole ;  and  while  doing  so,  to  guard 
against  the  failure  of  an  election  through  the  disagreement 
of  the  two  houses.  The  method  of  counting  was  not  pre 
scribed,  for  it  was  thought  that  it  might  safely  be  left  to 
joint  rules  established  by  the  two  houses  of  Congress  them 
selves,  after  analogies  supplied  by  the  experience  of  the 
several  state  legislatures.  The  case  of  double  returns,  sent 
in  by  rival  governments  in  the  same  state,  was  not  contem 
plated  by  the  convention  ;  and  thus  the  door  was  left  open 
for  a  danger  considerably  greater  than  many  of  those  over 
which  the  delegates  were  agitated.  It  may  safely  be  said, 
however,  that  not  even  the  wildest  license  of  interpretation 


1 787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


305 


can  find  any  support  for  the  ridiculous  doctrine  suggested 
by  some  persons  blinded  by  political  passion  in  1877,  that 
the  business  of  counting  the  votes  and  deciding  upon  the 
validity  of  returns  belongs  to  the  president  of  the  Senate. 


No  such  idea  was  for  a  moment  entertained  by  the  conven 
tion.  Any  such  idea  is  completely  negatived  by  their  action 
of  the  6th  of  September.  The  express  purpose  of  the  final 
arrangement  made  on  that  day  was  to  admit  the  House  of 
Representatives  to  active  participation  in  the  office  of  de 
termining  who  should  have  been  elected  president.  It  was 
expressly  declared  that  this  work  was  too  important  to  be 
left  to  the  Senate  alone.  What,  then,  would  the  conven 
tion  have  said  to  the  preposterous  notion  that  this  work 


306  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

might  safely  be  left  to  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate  ? 
The  convention  were  keenly  alive  to  any  imaginable  grant 
of  authority  that  might  enable  the  Senate  to  grow  into  an 
oligarchy.  What  would  they  have  said  to  the  proposal  to 
create  a  monocrat  ad  hoc,  an  official  permanently  endowed 
by  virtue  of  his  office  with  the  function  of  king-maker  ? 

In  this  connection  it  is  worth  our  while  to  observe  that 
in  no  respect  has  the  actual  working  of  the  Constitution 
departed  so  far  from  the  intentions  of  its  framers  as  in  the 
case  of  their  provisions  concerning  the  executive.  Against 
The  con-  a  nost  of  possible  dangers  they  guarded  most  elab- 
foresaw  orately,  but  the  dangers  and  inconveniences  against 
imaginary  which  we  have  actually  had  to  contend  they  did  not 
but  n^'the  foresee.  It  will  be  observed  that  Wilson's  pro 
posal  for  a  direct  election  of  the  president  by  the 
people  found  little  favour  in  the  convention.  The  schemes 
that  were  seriously  considered  oscillated  back  and  forth 
between  an  election  by  the  national  legislature  and  an  elec 
tion  by  a  special  college  of  electors.  The  electors  might  be 
chosen  by  a  popular  vote,  or  by  the  state  legislatures,  or  in 
any  such  wise  as  each  state  might  see  fit  to  determine  for 
itself.  In  point  of  fact,  electors  were  chosen  by  the  legisla 
ture  in  New  Jersey  till  1816;  in  Connecticut  till  1820;  in 
New  York,  Delaware,  and  Vermont,  and  with  one  exception 
in  Georgia,  till  1824 ;  in  South  Carolina  till  1868.  Massachu 
setts  adopted  various  plans,  and  did  not  finally  settle  down 
to  an  election  by  the  people  until  1828.  Now  there  were 
several  reasons  why  the  Federal  Convention  was  afraid  to 
trust  the  choice  of  the  president  directly  to  the  people. 
One  was  that  very  old  objection,  the  fear  of  the  machina 
tions  of  demagogues,  since  people  were  supposed  to  be  so 
easily  fooled.  As  already  observed,  the  democratic  senti 
ment  in  the  convention  was  such  as  we  should  now  call 
weak.  Another  reason  shows  vividly  how  wide  the  world 
seemed  in  those  days  of  slow  coaches  and  mail-bags  carried 
on  horseback.  It  was  feared  that  people  would  not  have 
sufficient  data  wherewith  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  public 


1 787 


THE    FEDERAL    CONVENTION 


307 


men  in  states  remote  from  their  own.  The  electors,  as 
eminent  men  exceptionally  well  informed,  might  hold  little 
conventions  and  select  the  best  possible  candidates,  using 
in  every  case  their  own  unfettered  judgment. 

In  this  connection  the  words  of  Hamilton  are  worth  quot 
ing.  In  the  sixty-eighth  number  of  the  "  Federalist "  he 
says  :  "  The  mode  of  appointment  of  the  chief  magistrate 
of  the  United  States  is  almost  the  only  part  of  the  sys 
tem  which  has  escaped  without  severe  censure,  or  which 


has  received  the  slightest  mark  of  approbation  from  its 
opponents.  The  most  plausible  of  these  who  has  appeared 
in  print  has  even  deigned  to  admit  that  the  election  of 
the  president  is  well  guarded.  ...  It  was  desirable  that  the 
sense  of  the  people  should  operate  in  the  choice  of  the 


3o8  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

person  to  whom  so  important  a  trust  was  to  be  confided. 
...  It  was  equally  desirable  that  the  immediate  election 
should  be  made  by  men  capable  of  analyzing  the  qualities 
adapted  to  the  station,  and  acting  under  circumstances 
favourable  to  deliberation  and  to  a  judicious  combination  of 
all  the  reasons  and  inducements  that  were  proper  to  govern 
their  choice.  A  small  number  of  persons,  selected  by  their 
fellow-citizens  from  the  general  mass,  will  be  most  likely  to 
possess  the  information  and  discernment  requisite  to  so  com 
plicated  an  investigation.  ...  It  was  also  peculiarly  desir 
able  to  afford  as  little  opportunity  as  possible  to  tumult  and 
disorder.  This  evil  was  not  least  to  be  dreaded  in  the  elec 
tion  of  a  magistrate  who  was  to  have  so  important  an  agency 
in  the  administration  of  the  government." 

Such  was  the  theory  as  set  forth  by  a  thinker  endowed 
with  rare  ability  to  follow  out  in  imagination  the  results  of 
any  course  of  political  action.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the 
actual  working  of  the  scheme  has  been  very  different  from 
Actual  what  was  expected.  In  our  very  first  great  strug- 
working  gle  of  parties,  in  1800,  the  electors  divided  upon 
electoral  party  lines,  with  little  heed  to  the  "complicated 
investigation  "  for  which  they  were  supposed  to  be 
chosen.  Quite  naturally,  for  the  work  of  electing  a  candi 
date  presupposes  a  state  of  mind  very  different  from  that  of 
serene  deliberation.  In  1800  the  electors  acted  simply  as 
automata  recording  the  victory  of  their  party,  and  so  it  has 
been  ever  since.  In  our  own  time  presidents  and  vice- 
presidents  are  nominated,  not  without  elaborate  intrigue,  by 
special  conventions  quite  unknown  to  the  Constitution ;  the 
people  cast  their  votes  for  the  two  or  three  pairs  of  can 
didates  thus  presented,  and  the  electoral  college  simply 
registers  the  results.  The  system  is  thus  fully  exposed  to 
all  the  dangers  which  our  forefathers  dreaded  from  the  fre 
quent  election  of  a  chief  magistrate  by  the  people.  Owing 
to  the  great  good-sense  and  good-nature  of  the  American 
people,  the  system  does  not  work  so  badly  as  might  be 
expected.  It  has,  indeed,  worked  immeasurably  better  than 


1787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


309 


any  one  would  have  ventured  to  predict.  It  is  nevertheless 
open  to  grave  objections.  It  compels  a  change  of  adminis 
tration  at  stated  astronomical  periods,  whether  any  change 
of  policy  is  called  for  or  not ;  it  stirs  up  the  whole  country 
every  fourth  year  with  a  furious  excitement  that  is  often 
largely  factitious  ;  and  twice  within  the  century,  in  1801  and 
again  in  1877,  it  has  brought  us  to  the  verge  of  the  most 
foolish  and  hopeless  species  of  civil  war,  in  view  of  that  thor 
oughly  monarchical  kind  of  accident,  a  disputed  succession.1 
The  most  curious  and  instructive  point  concerning  the 
peculiar  executive  devised  for  the  United  States  by  the 
Federal  Convention  is 
the  fact  that  the  dele 
gates  proceeded  upon  a 
thoroughly  false  theory  . 
of  what  they  were  doing. 
As  already  observed,  in 
this  part  of  its  discus 
sions  the  convention  had 
not  the  clearly  outlined 
chart  of  local  interests  to 
steer  by.  It  indulged  in 
general  speculations  and 
looked  about  for  prece 
dents  ;  and  there  was 
one  precedent  which 
American  statesmen  then 
always  had  before  their 
eyes,  whether  they  were 
distinctly  aware  of  it  or 
not.  In  creating  an  ex 
ecutive  department,  the  members  of  the  convention  were 
really  trying  to  copy  the  only  constitution  of  which  they 
had  any  direct  experience,  and  which  most  of  them  agreed 

1  Since  this  was  written,  this  last  and  most  serious  danger  would 
seem  to  have  been  removed  by  the  acts  of  1886  and  1887  regulating  the 
presidential  succession  and  the  counting  of  electoral  votes. 


3io  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

in  thinking  the  most  efficient  working  constitution  in  exist- 
The  con-  ence,  —  as  indeed  it  was.  They  were  trying  to 
vention  copy  the  British  Constitution,  modifying  it  to  suit 
itself  to  be  their  republican  ideas  ;  but  curiously  enough,  what 
from  the  they  copied  in  creating  the  office  of  president  was 
Constitu-  not  the  real  English  executive  or  prime  minister, 
tion  but  the  fictitious  English  executive,  the  sovereign. 

And  this  was  associated  in  their  minds  with  another  pro 
found  misconception,  which  influenced  all  this  part  of  their 
work.  They  thought  that  to  keep  the  legislative  and  exec 
utive  offices  distinct  and  separate  was  the  very  palladium  of 
liberty ;  and  they  all  took  it  for  granted,  without  a  mo 
ment's  question,  that  the  British  Constitution  did  this  thing. 
England,  they  thought,  is  governed  by  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons,  and  the  supreme  power  is  nicely  divided  between 
the  three,  so  that  neither  one  can  get  the  whole  of  it,  and 
that  is  the  safeguard  of  English  liberty.  So  they  arranged 
President,  Senate,  and  Representatives  to  correspond,  and 
sedulously  sought  to  divide  supreme  power  between  the 
three,  so  that  they  might  operate  as  checks  upon  one  an 
other.  If  either  one  should  ever  succeed  in  acquiring  the 
whole  sovereignty,  then  they  thought  there  would  be  an 
end  of  American  liberty. 

Now  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  work  of  the  Federal  Con 
vention,  in  dealing  with  the  legislative  department,  the  dele 
gates  were  on  firm  ground,  because  they  were  dealing  with 
things  of  which  they  knew  something  by  experience  ;  but  in 
all  this  careful  separation  of  the  executive  power  from  the 
legislative  they  went  wide  of  the  mark,  because  they  were 
following  a  theory  which  did  not  truly  describe  things  as 
they  really  existed.  And  that  was  because  the  English  Con 
stitution  was,  and  still  is,  covered  up  with  a  thick  husk  of 
legal  fictions  which  long  ago  ceased  to  have  any  vitality. 
Blackstone,  the  great  authority  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
set  forth  this  theory  of  the  division  of  power  between  King, 
Lords,  and  Commons  with  clearness  and  force,  and  nobody 
then  understood  English  history  minutely  or  thoroughly 


1787  THE    FEDERAL  CONVENTION  311 

enough   to   see   its   fallaciousness.     Montesquieu   also,  the 
ablest  and  most  elegant  political  writer  of  the  age,    influence 
with  whose  works  most  of  the  statesmen  in  the 
Federal  Convention  were  familiar,  gave  a  similar 
description   of   the    English    Constitution,   and   generalized 
from  it  as  the   ideal    constitution  for  a  free  people.     But 
Montesquieu   and   Blackstone,    in   their  treatment    of   this 


point,  had  their  eyes  upon  the  legal  fictions,  and  were  blind 
to  the  real  machinery  which  was  working  under  them. 
They  gave  elegant  expression  to  what  the  late  Mr.  Bagehot 
called  the  "literary  theory"  of  the  English  Constitution. 
But  the  real  thing  differed  essentially  from  the  "  literary 
theory"  even  in  their  day.  In  our  own  time  the  diver 
gence  has  become  so  conspicuous  that  it  would  not  now  be 
possible  for  well-informed  writers  to  make  the  mistake  of 
Montesquieu  and  Blackstone.  In  our  time  it  has  come  to 


3i2  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

be  perfectly  obvious  that  so  far  from  the  English  Constitu 
tion  separating  the  executive  power  from  the  legislative, 
this  is  precisely  what  it  does  not  do.  In  Great  Britain  the 
supreme  power  is  all  lodged  in  a  single  body,  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  sovereign  has  come  to  be  purely  a  legal 
fiction,  and  the  House  of  Lords  maintains  itself  only  by 
submitting  to  the  Commons.  The  House  of  Commons  is 
absolutely  supreme,  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  it  really 
both  appoints  and  dismisses  the  executive.  The  English 
executive,  or  chief  magistrate,  is  ordinarily  the  first  lord  of 
the  treasury,  and  is  commonly  styled  the  prime  minister. 
He  is  chairman  of  the  most  important  committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  his  cabinet  consists  of  the  chair 
men  of  other  committees. 

To  make  th'is  perfectly  clear,  let  us  see  what  our  ma 
chinery  of  government  would  be  if  it  were  really  like  the 
English.  The  presence  or  absence  of  the  crowned  head 
makes  no  essential  difference ;  it  is  only  a  kind  of  orna 
mental  cupola.  Suppose  for  a  moment  the  presidency 
what  our  abolished,  or  reduced  to  the  political  nullity  of  the 
mTn?11  crown  in  England  ;  and  postpone  for  a  moment 
would  be  the  consideration  of  the  Senate.  Suppose  that  in 

if  it  were 

really  like  our  House  of  Representatives  the  committee  of 
Great  ways  and  means  had  two  chairmen,  —  an  upper 
chairman  who  looks  after  all  sorts  of  business,  and 
a  lower  chairman  who  attends  especially  to  the  finances. 
This  upper  chairman,  we  will  say,  corresponds  to  the  first 
lord  of  the  treasury,  while  the  lower  one  corresponds  to  the 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  Sometimes,  when  the  upper 
chairman  is  a  great  financier,  and  capable  of  enormous 
labour,  he  will  fill  both  places  at  once,  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  lately  first  lord  of  the  treasury  and  chancellor  of  the 
exchequer.  The  chairmen  of  the  other  committees  on  for 
eign,  military,  and  naval  affairs  will  answer  to  the  English 
secretaries  of  state  for  foreign  affairs  and  for  war,  the  first 
lord  of  the  admiralty,  and  so  on.  This  group  of  chairmen, 
headed  by  the  upper  chairman  of  the  ways  and  means,  will 


1787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


313 


then  answer  to  the  English  cabinet,  with  its  prime  minister. 
To  complete  the  parallel,  let  us  suppose  that,  after  a  new 
House  of  Representatives  is  elected,  it  chooses  this  prime 


minister,  and  he  appoints  the  other  chairmen  who  are  to 
make  up  his  cabinet.  Suppose,  too,  that  he  initiates  all 
legislation,  and  executes  all  laws,  and  stays  in  office  three 
weeks  or  thirty  years,  or  as  long  as  he  can  get  a  majority  of 
the  house  to  vote  for  his  measures.  If  he  loses  his  majority, 


3H  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

he  can  either  resign  or  dissolve  the  house,  and  order  a  new 
election,  thus  appealing  directly  to  the  people.  If  the  new 
house  gives  him  a  majority,  he  stays  in  office  ;  if  it  shows 
a  majority  against  him,  he  steps  down  into  the  house,  and 
becomes,  perhaps,  the  leader  of  the  opposition. 

Now  if  this  were  the  form  of  our  government,  it  would 
correspond  in  all  essential  features  to  that  of  England.     The 
likeness  is  liable  to  be  obscured  by  the  fact  that  in  England 
it  is  the  queen  who  is  supposed  to  appoint  the  prime  minis 
ter  ;  but  that  is  simply  a  part  of  the  antiquated  "  literary 
theory  "  of  the  English  Constitution.     In  reality  the  queen 
only  acts  as  mistress  of  the  ceremonies.     Whatever  she  may 
wish,  the  prime  minister  must  be  the  man  who  can  com 
mand  the  best  working  majority  in  the  house.     This  is  not 
only  tested  by  the  first  vote  that  is  taken,  but  it  is  almost 
invariably  known  beforehand  so  well  that  if  the  queen  offers 
the  place  to  the  wrong  man  he  refuses  to  take  it.     Should 
he  be  so  foolish  as  to  take  it,  he  is  sure  to  be  overthrown  at 
the  first  test  vote,  and  then  the  right  man  comes  in.     Thus 
in  1880  the  queen's  manifest  preference  for  Lord  Granville 
or  Lord  Hartington  made  no  sort  of  difference.     Mr.  Glad 
stone  was  as  much  chosen  by  the  House  of  Commons  as  if 
the  members  had  sat  in  their  seats  and  balloted  for  him.     If 
the  crown  were  to  be  abolished  to-morrow,  and  the  house 
were  henceforth,  on  the  resignation  of  a  prime  minister,  to 
elect  a  new  one  to  serve  as  long  as  he  could  command  a 
majority,  it  would  not  be  doing  essentially  otherwise  than 
it  does  now.     The  house  then  dismisses  its  minister  when 
it  rejects  one  of  his  important  measures.     But  while  thus 
appointed  and  dismissed  by  the  house,  he  is  in  no  wise  its 
slave ;  for  by  the  power  of  dissolution  he  has  the  right  to 
appeal  to  the  country,  and  let  the  general  election  decide 
the  issue.     The  obvious  advantages  of  this  system  are  that 
it  makes  anything  like  a  deadlock  between  the  legislature 
and  the  executive  impossible  ;  and  it  insures  a  concentra 
tion  of  responsibility.     The  prime  minister's  bills  cannot  be 
disregarded,  like  the  president's  messages;  and  thus,  too, 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  315 

the  house  is  kept  in  hand,   and  cannot  degenerate  into  a 
debating  club.1 

A  system  so  delicate  and  subtle,  yet  so  strong  and  effi 
cient,  as  this  could  no  more  have  been  invented  by  the 
wisest  of  statesmen  than  a  chemist  could  make  albumen  by 
taking  its  elements  and  mixing  them  together.  In  its  prac 
tical  working  it  is  a  much  simpler  system  than  ours,  and 
still  its  principal  features  are  not  such  as  would  be  likely  to 
occur  to  men  who  had  not  had  some  actual  experience  of 
them.  It  is  the  peculiar  outgrowth  of  English  history.  As 
we  can  now  see,  its  chief  characteristic  is  its  not  In  thg 
separating  the  executive  power  from  the  legislative.  British 
As  a  member  of  Parliament,  the  prime  minister 


introduces  the  legislation  which  he  is  himself  ex-  department 
pected  to  carry  into  effect.  Nor  does  the  English  k^jffJJJJ" 
system  even  keep  the  judiciary  entirely  separate,  the  legisia- 
for  the  lord  chancellor  not  only  presides  over  the 
House  of  Lords,  but  sits  in  the  cabinet  as  the  prime  minis 
ter's  legal  adviser.  It  is  somewhat  as  if  the  chief  justice 
of  the  United  States  were  ex  officio  president  of  the  Senate 

and  attorney  -  general  ; 
though  here  the  resem- 
blance  is  somewhat  su- 
perficial.  Our  Senate, 
although  it  does  not  re 
present  landed  aristocracy 

or  the  church,  but  the  federal  character  of  our  government, 
has  still  a  superficial  resemblance  to'the  House  of  Lords.  It 
passes  on  all  bills  that  come  up  from  the  lower  house,  and 
can  originate  bills  on  most  matters,  but  not  for  raising  reve 
nue.  Its  function  as  a  high  court  of  impeachment,  with  the 
chief  justice  for  its  presiding  officer,  was  directly  copied 
from  the  House  of  Lords.  But  here  the  resemblance  ends. 

1  The  history  of  President  Cleveland's  tariff  message  of  1887,  how 
ever,  shows  that,  where  a  wise  and  courageous  president  calls  attention 
to  a  living  issue,  his  party,  alike  in  Congress  and  in  the  country,  is  in  a 
measure  compelled  to  follow  his  lead. 


3i6  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

The  House  of  Lords  has  no  such  veto  upon  the  House  of 
Commons  as  our  Senate  has  upon  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives.  Between  our  upper  and  lower  houses  a  serious 
deadlock  is  possible  ;  but  the  House  of  Lords  can  only 
reject  a  bill  until  it  sees  that  the  House  of  Commons  is 
determined  to  have  it  carried.  It  can  only  enter  a  protest. 
If  it  is  obstinate  and  tries  to  do  more,  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  through  its  prime  minister,  can  create  enough  new 
peers  to  change  the  vote,  —  a  power  so  formidable  in  its 
effects  upon  the  social  position  of  the  peerage  that  it  does 
not  need  to  be  used.  The  knowledge  that  it  exists  is  usually 
enough  to  bring  the  House  of  Lords  to  terms.1 

These  features  of  the  English  Constitution  are  so  promi 

nent  since  the  reform  of  Parliament  in  1832  as  to  be  gener 

ally  recognized.     They  have  been   gradually  becoming  its 

essential   features   ever   since   the    Revolution   of 

Circum 

stances  1688.  Before  that  time  the  crown  had  really 
been  the  executive,  and  there  had  really  been  a 
separation  between  the  executive  and  legislative 


a  century  branches  of  the  government,  which  on  several 
occasions,  and  notably  in  the  middle  of  the  seven 
teenth  century,  had  led  to  armed  strife.  What  the  Revolu 
tion  of  1688  really  decided  was  that  henceforth  in  England 
the  executive  was  to  be  the  mighty  arm  of  the  legislature, 
and  not  a  separate  and  rival  power.  It  ended  whatever  of 
reality  there  was  in  the  old  system  of  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons,  and  by  the  time  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  the  sys 
tem  of  cabinet  government  had  become  fairly  established  ; 
but  men  still  continued  to  use  the  phrases  and  formulas 
bequeathed  from  former  ages,  so  that  the  meaning  of  the 
changes  going  on  under  their  very  eyes  was  obscured. 
There  was  also  a  great  historical  incident,  after  Walpole's 
time,  which  served  further  to  obscure  the  meaning  of  these 
changes,  especially  to  Americans.  From  1760  to  1784,  by 

1  Where,  however,  the  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords  is  so  great  as 
to  approach  unanimity,  as  in  opposition  to  Home  Rule  for  Ireland,  it 
does  operate  as  a  check  upon  the  House  of  Commons,  because  the 
cure  mentioned  in  the  text  would  be  too  violent. 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  317 

means  of  the  rotten  borough  system  of  elections  and  the 
peculiar  attitude  of  political  parties,  the  king  contrived  to 
make  his  will  felt  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  such  an 
extent  that  it  became  possible  to  speak  of  the  personal  gov 
ernment  of  George  III.  The  work  of  the  Revolution  of 
1688  was  not  really  completed  till  the  election  of  1784, 
which  made  Pitt  the  ruler  of  England,  and  its  fruits  cannot 
be  said  to  have  been  fully  secured  till  1832.  Now  as  our 
Revolutionary  War  was  brought  on  by  the  attempts  of 
George  III.  to  establish  his  personal  government,  and  as  it 
was  actually  he  rather  than  Lord  North  who  ruled  England 
during  that  war,  it  was  not  strange  that  Americans,  even 
of  the  highest  education,  should  have  failed  to  discover  the 
transformation  which  the  past  century  had  wrought  in  the 
framework  of  the  English  government.  Nay,  more,  during 
this  century  the  king  had  seemed  even  more  of  a  real  insti 
tution  to  the  Americans  than  to  the  British.  He  had 
seemed  to  them  the  only  link  which  bound  the  different 
parts  of  the  empire  together.  Throughout  the  struggles 
which  culminated  in  the  War  of  Independence,  it  had  been 
the  favourite  American  theory  that  while  the  colonial  assem 
blies  and  the  British  Parliament  were  sovereign  each  in  its 
own  sphere,  all  alike  owed  allegiance  to  the  king  as  visible 
head  of  the  empire.  To  people  who  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  setting  forth  and  defending  such  a  theory,  it  was  impossi 
ble  that  the  crown  should  seem  so  much  a  legal  fiction  as  it 
had  really  come  to  be  in  England.  It  is  very  instructive 
to  note  that  while  the  members  of  the  Federal  Convention 
thoroughly  understood  the  antiquated  theory  of  the  English 
Constitution  as  set  forth  by  Blackstone,  they  drew  very  few 
illustrations  from  the  modern  working  of  Parliament,  with 
which  they  had  not  had  sufficient  opportunities  of  becoming 
familiar.  In  particular  they  seemed  quite  unconscious  of 
the  vast  significance  of  a  dissolution  of  Parliament,  although 
a  dissolution  had  occurred  only  three  years  before  under 
such  circumstances  as  to  work  a  revolution  in  British  politics 
without  a  breath  of  disturbance.  The  only  sort  of  dissolu- 


3i8  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

tion  with  which  they  were  familiar  was  that  in  which  Dun- 
more  or  Bernard  used  to  send  the  colonial  assemblies  home 
about  their  business  whenever  they  grew  too  refractory. 
Had  the  significance  of  a  dissolution,  in  the  British  sense, 
been  understood  by  the  convention,  the  pregnant  suggestion 
of  Roger  Sherman,  above  mentioned,  could  not  have  failed 
to  give  a  different  turn  to  the  whole  series  of  debates  on  the 
executive  branch  of  the  government.  Had  our  Constitution 
been  framed  a  few  years  later,  this  point  would  have  had  a 
better  chance  of  being  understood.  As  it  was,  in  trying  to 
modify  the  English  system  so  as  to  adapt  it  to  our  own  uses, 
it  was  the  archaic  monarchical  feature,  and  not  the  modern 
ministerial  feature,  upon  which  we  seized.  The  president, 
in  our  system,  irremovable  by  the  national  legislature,  does 
not  answer  to  the  modern  prime  minister,  but  to  the  old- 
fashioned  king,  with  powers  for  mischief  curtailed  by  elec 
tion  for  short  terms. 

Among  the  ancient  royal  powers  wielded  by  the  American 
president,  perhaps  the  most  important  is  his  limited  power 
of  veto.  An  act  passed  by  the  two  houses  of  Congress  is 
not  in  force  until  he  has  signed  it,  or  else  has  allowed  ten 
days  to  elapse  without  expressing  his  disapproval  of  it.  If 
he  refuse  to  sign  a  bill,  it  requires  a  two  thirds  majority  in 
both  houses  to  pass  it  over  his  refusal.  This  gives  the 
president  a  very  considerable  check  upon  the  national  legis 
lature.  The  English  sovereign  once  possessed  a  veto  power 
without  such  specific  limitations,  but  has  long  since  practi 
cally  lost  it  altogether.  The  last  use  of  it  was  in  1 707,  when 
Queen  Anne  vetoed  a  Scotch  militia  bill.  George  III. 
regarded  the  veto  power  as  one  of  his  prerogatives,  but  he 
never  ventured  so  far  as  to  exercise  it.  In  our  time  Mr. 
Bagehot  writes  that  the  queen  must  sign  her  own  death- 
warrant  if  the  two  houses  agree  in  sending  it  up  to  her.1 
The  American  constitution  is  in  this  respect  essentially  less 
democratic  and  more  monarchical  than  the  British. 

1  Bagehot,  The  English  Constitution,  p.  122;  Taswell-Langmead, 
English  Constitutional  History,  p.  706. 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  319 

The  independence  of  the  executive  magistrate,  and  his 
prerogative  of  veto,  are  a  fundamental  part  of  the  American 
system  of  government.  The  position  of  the  state  governors 
is  in  these  respects  analogous  to  that  of  the  president. 
Probably  this  system  is  better  adapted  to  the  needs  of  our 
country  than  the  more  democratic  British  system.  One  of 
the  most  serious  of  the  dangers  which  beset  democratic 
government,  especially  where  it  is  conducted  on  a  great 
scale,  is  the  danger  that  the  majority  for  the  time  being  will 
use  its  power  tyrannically  and  unscrupulously,  as  it  is  always 
tempted  to  do.  Against  such  unbridled  democracy  we  have 
striven  to  guard  ourselves  by  various  constitutional  checks 
and  balances.  Our  written  constitutions  and  our  supreme 
courts  are  important  safeguards,  and  another  great  safe 
guard  is  the  independence  of  our  executives.  But  if  our 
executive  departments  were  mere  committees  of  the  legisla 
ture,  like  the  English  cabinet,  this  independence  could  not 
be  maintained ;  and  the  loss  of  it  would  probably  entail 
upon  us  greater  evils  than  those  which  now  flow  from  want 
of  leadership  in  our  legislatures.1 

In  contrasting  presidential  with  cabinet  government,  Mr. 
Bagehot  has  instructively  pointed  to  the  evils  attending  the 
long  antagonism  between  President  Johnson  and  Congress. 
If  Johnson's  position  had  been  like  that  of  an  English  prime 
minister,  he  would  have  had  to  resign  at  the  beginning  of 
the  struggle.  As  it  was,  his  irremovableness  goaded  Con 
gress  to  such  desperation  that  it  tried  to  make  a  very  ques 
tionable  use  of  the  process  of  impeachment.  This  example 
seems  to  show  the  superiority  of  the  English  system. 

A  contrary  inference,  however,  is  suggested  by  the  autumn 
elections  of  1862.  There  was  a  notable  diminution  of  the 
Republican  vote,  though  not  enough  to  give  the  Democrats 
a  majority  in  Congress.  Supposing  the  Democrats  to  have 

1  In  two  admirable  essays  on  "  Cabinet  Responsibility  and  the  Con 
stitution,"  and  "  Democracy  and  the  Constitution,"  Mr.  Lawrence 
Lowell  has  shown  the  merits  of  the  American  system.  Lowell,  Essays 
on  Government,  Boston,  1890,  pp.  20-117. 


320  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

gained  a  majority,  if  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  Prime  Minister 
instead  of  President,  it  would  have  been  necessary  for  him  to 
resign.  In  that  critical  moment  of  a  great  war,  the  bare  pos 
sibility  of  a  sudden  change  of  leaders  and  policy  would  have 
been  an  evil,  and  the  irremovableness  of  the  executive  was 
an  element  of  strength  on  the  side  of  the  government. 

The  phenomena  with  which  history  deals  are  so  compli 
cated  that  one  can  seldom  arrive  at  positive  conclusions  by 
citing  real  or  hypothetical  examples.  But  there  is  one 
respect  in  which  daily  experience  is  teaching  Americans  to 
set  a  high  value  upon  the  independence  of  the  executive. 
That  independence,  I  repeat,  is  needed  as  a  check  upon  the 
irresponsible  tyranny  of  the  legislature.  Two  centuries  ago 
the  legislature  was  needed  as  a  check  upon  the  monarch. 
To-day  the  tyranny  which  we  have  chiefly  to  dread,  and 
under  which  we  chiefly  suffer,  is  the  tyranny  of  Demos, 
"  the  many-headed  king ;  "  and  when  we  are  choosing  a 
president  or  a  governor  one  of  the  most  important  questions 
we  can  ask  is  whether  the  candidate  is  clear-headed  enough 
and  bold  enough  to  protect  us  from  the  knavery  and  folly 
of  our  representatives.  Such  are  the  vicissitudes  of  peril 
through  which  society  must  pass  on  its  way  toward  that 
liberty  of  which  eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  ! 

The  close  parallelism  between  the  office  of  president  and 
that  of  king  in  the  minds  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution 
was  instructively  shown  in  the  debates  on  the  advisableness 
of  restraining  the  president's  action  by  a  privy  council. 
Gerry  and  Sherman  urged  that  there  was  need  of  such  a 
council,  in  order  to  keep  watch  over  the  president. 

The  Ameri-     .  .  -1111 

can  cabinet  It  was  suggested  that  the  privy  council  should  con- 

gousanot  to  sist  of  "  the  president  of  the  Senate,  the  speaker  of 

Sbine^but  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  chief  justice  of 

to  the  privy  the  supreme  court,  and  the  principal  officer  in  each 

council  i      11    r 

of  five  departments  as  they  shall  from  time  to  time 
be  established  ;  their  duty  shall  be  to  advise  him  in  matters 
which  he  shall  lay  before  them,  but  their  advice  shall  not 
conclude  him,  or  affect  his  responsibility."  The  plan  for 


1787  THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION  321 

such  a  council  found  favour  with  Franklin,  Madison,  Wilson, 
Dickinson,  and  Mason,  but  did  not  satisfy  the  convention. 
When  it  was  voted  down  Mason  used  strong  language. 
"In  rejecting  a  council  to  the  president,"  said  he,  "we  are 
about  to  try  an  experiment  on  which  the  most  despotic  gov 
ernment  has  never  ventured  ;  the  Grand  Seignior  himself 
has  his  Divan."  It  was  this  failure  to  provide  a  council 
which  led  the  convention  to  give  to  the  Senate  a  share  in 
some  of  the  executive  functions  of  the  president,  such  as  the 
making  of  treaties,  the  appointment  of  ambassadors,  consuls, 
judges  of  the  supreme  court,  and  other  officers  of  the  United 
States  whose  appointment  was  not  otherwise  provided  for. 
As  it  was  objected  to  the  office  of  vice-president  that  he 
seemed  to  have  nothing  provided  for  him  to  do,  he  was  dis 
posed  of  by  making  him  president  of  the  Senate.  No  cabi 
net  was  created  by  the  Constitution,  but  since  then  the 
heads  of  various  executive  departments,  appointed  by  the 
president,  have  come  to  constitute  what  is  called  his  cabinet. 
Since,  however,  the  members  of  it  do  not  belong  to  Congress, 
and  can  neither  initiate  nor  guide  legislation,  they  really 
constitute  a  privy  council  rather  than  a  cabinet  in  the 
modern  sense,  thus  furnishing  another  illustration  of  the 
analogy  between  the  president  and  the  archaic  sovereign. 

Concerning  the  structure  of  the  federal  judiciary  little 
need  be  said  here.  It  was  framed  with  very  little  The  federal 
disagreement  among  the  delegates.  The  work  was  Judiciary 
chiefly  done  in  committee  by  Ellsworth,  Wilson,  Randolph, 
and  Rutledge,  and  the  result  did  not  differ  essentially  from 
the  scheme  laid  down  in  the  Virginia  plan.  It  was  indeed 
the  indispensable  completion  of  the  work  which  was  begun 
by  the  creation  of  a  national  House  of  Representatives.  To 
make  a  federal  government  immediately  operative  upon 
individual  citizens,  it  must  of  course  be  armed  with  federal 
courts  to  try  and  federal  officers  to  execute  judgment  in 
all  cases  in  which  individual  citizens  were  amenable  to  the 
national  law.  But  for  this  system  of  United  States  courts 
extended  throughout  the  states  and  supreme  within  its  own 


322  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

sphere,  the  federal  constitution  could  never  have  been  put 
into  practical  working  order.  In  another  respect  the  federal 
judiciary  was  the  most  remarkable  and  original  of  all  the 
creations  of  that  wonderful  convention.  It  was  charged 
with  the  duty  of  interpreting,  in  accordance  with  the  general 
principles  of  common  law,  the  Federal  Constitution  itself. 
This  is  the  most  noble  as  it  is  the  most  distinctive  feature  in 
the  government  of  the  United  States.  It  constitutes  a  dif 
ference  between  the  American  and  British  systems  more 
fundamental  than  the  separation  of  the  executive  from  the 
legislative  department.  In  Great  Britain  the  unwritten  con 
stitution  is  administered  by  the  omnipotent  House  of  Com 
mons  ;  whatever  statute  is  enacted  by  Parliament  must  stand 
until  some  future  Parliament  may  see  fit  to  repeal  it.  But 
an  act  passed  by  both  houses  of  Congress,  and  signed  by  the 
president,  may  still  be  set  aside  as  unconstitutional  by  the 
supreme  court  of  the  United  States  in  its  judgments  upon 
individual  cases  brought  before  it.  It  was  thus  that  the 
practical  working  of  our  Federal  Constitution  during  the  first 
thirty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  swayed  to  so 
great  an  extent  by  the  profound  and  luminous  decisions  of 
Chief  Justice  Marshall,  that  he  must  be  assigned  a  foremost 
place  among  the  founders  of  our  Federal  Union.  This 
intrusting  to  the  judiciary  the  whole  interpretation  of  the 
fundamental  instrument  of  government  is  the  most  pecul 
iarly  American  feature  of  the  work  done  by  the  convention, 
and  to  the  stability  of  such  a  federation  as  ours,  covering  as 
it  does  the  greater  part  of  a  huge  continent,  it  was  absolutely 
indispensable. 

Thus,  at  length,  was  realized  the  sublime  conception  of  a 
nation  in  which  every  citizen  lives  under  two  complete  and 
well-rounded  systems  of  laws,  —  the  state  law  and  the  fed 
eral  law,  —  each  with  its  legislature,  its  executive,  and  its 
judiciary  moving  one  within  the  other,  noiselessly  and  with 
out  friction.  It  was  one  of  the  longest  reaches  of  construc 
tive  statesmanship  ever  known  in  the  world.  There  never 
was  anything  quite  like  it  before,  and  in  Europe  it  needs 


T 


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1787  THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION  323 

much  explanation  to-day  even  for  educated  statesmen  who 
have  never  actually  beheld  its  workings.  Yet  to  Americans 
it  has  become  so  much  a  matter  of  course  that  they,  too, 
sometimes  need  to  be  told  how  much  it  signifies.  In  1787 
it  was  the  substitution  of  law  for  violence  between  states 
that  were  partly  sovereign.  In  some  future  still  grander 
convention  we  trust  the  same  thing  will  be  done  between 
states  that  have  been  wholly  sovereign,  whereby  peace  may 
gain  and  violence  be  diminished  over  other  lands  than  this 
which  has  set  the  example. 

Great  as  was  the  work  which  the  Federal  Convention  had 
now  accomplished,  none  of  the  members  supposed  it  to  be 
complete.  After  some  discussion,  it  was  decided  that 
Congress  might  at  any  time,  by  a  two  thirds  vote  in  both 
houses,  propose  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  or  on  the 
application  of  the  legislature  of  two  thirds  of  the  states 
might  call  a  convention  for  proposing  amendments  ;  and 
such  amendments  should  become  part  of  the  constitution 
as  soon  as  ratified  by  three  fourths  of  the  states,  either 
through  their  legislatures  or  through  special  conventions 
summoned  for  the  purpose.  The  design  of  this  elaborate 
arrangement  was  to  guard  against  hasty  or  ill-considered 
changes  in  the  fundamental  instrument  of  government  ;  and 
its  effectiveness  has  been  such  that  an  amendment  has 
come  to  be  impossible  save  as  the  result  of  intense  convic 
tion  on  the  part  of  a  vast  majority  of  the  whole  American 
people. 

Finally  it  was  decided  that  the  Federal  Constitution,  as 
now  completed,  should  be  presented  to  the  Continental 
Congress,  and  then  referred  to  special  conventions  in  all 
the  states  for  ratification  ;  and  that  when  nine  states,  or  two 
thirds  of  the  whole  number,  should  have  ratified,  it  should 
at  once  go  into  operation  as  between  such  ratifying  states. 

When  the  great  document  was  at  last  drafted  by  Gouver- 
neur  Morris,  and  was  all  ready  for  the  signatures,  the  aged 
Franklin  produced  a  paper,  which  was  read  for  him,  as  his 
voice  was  weak.  Some  parts  of  this  Constitution,  he  said, 


324  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

he  did  not  approve,  but  he  was  astonished  to  find  it  so  nearly 
perfect.  Whatever  opinion  he  had  of  its  errors  he 
Constitu-  would  sacrifice  to  the  public  good,  and  he  hoped 
that  every  member  of  the  convention  who  still  had 
objections  would  on  this  occasion  doubt  a  little  of  his  own 
infallibility,  and  for  the  sake  of  unanimity  put  his  name  to 
this  instrument.  Hamilton  added  his  plea.  A  few  mem 
bers,  he  said,  by  refusing  to  sign,  might  do  infinite  mischief. 
No  man's  ideas  could  be  more  remote  from  the  plan  than  his 
were  known  to  be ;  but  was  it  possible  for  a  true  patriot  to 
deliberate  between  anarchy  and  convulsion,  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  chance  of  good  to  be  expected  from  this  plan,  on 
the  other  ?  From  these  appeals,  as  well  as  from  Washing 
ton's  solemn  warning  at  the  outset,  we  see  how  distinctly  it 
was  realized  that  the  country  was  on  the  verge  of  civil  war. 
Most  of  the  members  felt  so,  but  to  some  the  new  govern 
ment  seemed  far  too  strong,  and  there  were  three  who 
dreaded  despotism  even  more  than  anarchy.  Mason,  Ran 
dolph,  and  Gerry  refused  to  sign,  though  Randolph  sought 
to  qualify  his  refusal  by  explaining  that  he"  could  not  yet 
make  up  his  mind  whether  to  oppose  or  defend  the  Consti 
tution,  when  it  should  be  laid  before  the  people  of  Virginia. 
He  wished  to  reserve  to  himself  full  liberty  of  action  in  the 
matter.  That  Mason  and  Gerry,  valuable  as  their  services 
had  been  in  the  making  of  the  Constitution,  would  now  go 
home  and  vigorously  oppose  it,  there  was  no  doubt.  Of  the 
delegates  who  were  present  on  the  last  day  of  the  conven 
tion,  all  but  these  three  signed  the  Constitution.  In  the 
signatures  the  twelve  states  which  had  taken  part  in  the 
work  were  all  represented,  Hamilton  signing  alone  for  New 
York. 

Thus  after  four  months  of  anxious  toil,  through  the  whole 
of  a  scorching  Philadelphia  summer,  after  earnest  but  some 
times  bitter  discussion,  in  which  more  than  once  the  meet 
ing  had  seemed  on  the  point  of  breaking  up,  a  colossal  work 
had  at  last  been  accomplished,  the  results  of  which  were 
powerfully  to  affect  the  whole  future  career  of  the  human 


1787 


THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 


325 


THE    PRESIDENT  S    ARMCHAIR 


race.  t  In  spite  of  the  high-wrought  intensity  of  feeling 
which  had  been  now  and  then  displayed,  grave  decorum  had 
ruled  the  proceedings  ;  and  now,  though  few  were  really 
satisfied,  the  approach  to  acquiescent  unanimity  was  re 
markable.  When  all  was  over,  it  is  said  that  many  of  the 
members  seemed  awestruck.  Washington  sat  with  head 
bowed  in  solemn  meditation.  The  scene  was  ended  by 
a  characteristic  bit  of  homely  pleasantry  from  Franklin. 
Thirty-three  years  ago,  in  the  days  of  George  II.,  before 
the  first  mutterings  of  the  Revolution  had  been  heard,  and 
when  the  French  dominion  in  America  was  still  untouched, 
before  the  banishment  of  the  Acadians  or  the  rout  of  Brad- 
dock,  while  Washington  was  still  surveying  lands  in  the 
wilderness,  while  Madison  was  playing  in  the  nursery  and 
Hamilton  was  not  yet  born,  Franklin  had  endeavoured  to 
bring  together  the  thirteen  colonies  in  a  federal  union.  Of 
the  famous  Albany  plan  of  1/54,  the  first  complete  outline 


326  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vi 

of  a  federal  constitution  for  America  that  ever  was  made,  he 
was  the  principal  if  not  the  sole  author.  When  he  signed 
his  name  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  this  very 
room,  his  years  had  rounded  the  full  period  of  threescore 
and  ten.  Eleven  years  more  had  passed,  and  he  had  been 
spared  to  see  the  noble  aim  of  his  life  accomplished.  There 
was  still,  no  doubt,  a  chance  of  failure,  but  hope  now  reigned 
in  the  old  man's  breast.  On  the  back  of  the  president's 
quaint  black  armchair  there  was  emblazoned  a  half-sun,  bril 
liant  with  its  gilded  rays.  As  the  meeting  was  breaking  up 
and  Washington  arose,  Franklin  pointed  to  the  chair,  and 
made  it  the  text  for  prophecy.  "As  I  have  been  sitting 
here  all  these  weeks,"  said  he,  "  I  have  often  wondered 
whether  yonder  sun  is  rising  or  setting.  But  now  I  know 
that  it  is  a  rising  sun  !  " 


CHAPTER  VII 

CROWNING    THE    WORK 

IT  was  on  the  i;th  of  September,  1787,  that  the  Federal 
Convention  broke  up.  For  most  of  the  delegates  there  was 
a  long  and  tedious  journey  home  before  they  could  meet 
their  fellow-citizens  and  explain  what  had  been  done  at  Phil 
adelphia  during  this  anxious  summer.  Not  so,  however, 
with  Benjamin  Franklin  and  the  Pennsylvania  delegation. 
At  eleven  o'clock  on  the  next  morning,  radiant  with  delight 
at  seeing  one  of  the  most  cherished  purposes  of  his  life  so 
nearly  accomplished,  the  venerable  philosopher,  attended  by 
his  seven  colleagues,  presented  to  the  legislature  of  Pennsyl 
vania  a  copy  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  in  a  brief  but 
pithy  speech,  characterized  by  his  usual  homely  wisdom, 
begged  for  it  their  favourable  consideration.  His  words 
fell  upon,  willing  ears,  for  nowhere  was  the  disgust  at  the 
prevailing  anarchy  greater  than  in  Philadelphia.  But  still 
it  was  not  quite  in  order  for  the  assembly  to  act  upon  the 
matter  until  word  should  come  from  the  Continental  Con 
gress.  Since  its  ignominious  flight  to  Princeton,  four  years 
ago,  that  migratory  body  had  not  honoured  Philadelphia 
with  its  presence.  It  had  once  flitted  as  far  south  as  An 
napolis,  but  at  length  had  chosen  for  its  abiding-place  the 
city  of  New  York,  where  it  was  now  in  session.  The  new 
To  Congress  the  new  Constitution  must  be  sub- 


mitted  before  it  was  in  order  for  the  several  states   before  c°n- 

gress  and 

to  take  action  upon  it.     On  the  2Oth  of  Septem-   submitted 

.  ,    .  ,    .      r  forthwith 

ber  the  draft  of  the  Constitution  was  laid  before   tothesev- 


Congress,  accompanied  by  a  letter  from  Washing- 
ton.     The  forces  of  the  opposition  were  promptly   tion 
mustered.      At  their  head   was  Richard  Henry  Lee,   who 


328  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

eleven  years  ago  had  moved  in  Congress  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  He  was  ably  supported  by  Nathan  Dane 
of  Massachusetts,  and  the  delegation  from  New  York  were 
unanimous  in  their  determination  to  obstruct  any  movement 
toward  a  closer  union  of  the  states.  Their  tactics  were  vig 
orous,  but  the  majority  in  Congress  were  against  them, 
especially  after  the  return  of  Madison  from  Philadelphia. 
Madison,  aided  by  Edward  Carrington  and  young  Henry 
Lee,  the  famous  leader  of  light  horse,  succeeded  in  every 
division  in  carrying  the  vote  of  Virginia  in  favour  of  the 
Constitution  and  against  the  obstructive  measures  of  the 
elder  Lee.  The  objection  was  first  raised  that  the  new  Con 
stitution  would  put  an  end  to  the  Continental  Congress,  and 
that  in  recommending  it  to  the  states  for  consideration  Con 
gress  would  be  virtually  asking  them  to  terminate  its  own 
existence.  Was  it  right  or  proper  for  Congress  thus  to  have 
a  hand  in  signing  its  own  death-warrant  ?  But  this  flimsy 
argument  was  quickly  overturned.  Seven  months  before 
Congress  had  recognized  the  necessity  for  calling  the  con 
vention  together ;  whatever  need  for  its  work  existed  then, 
there  was  the  same  need  now  ;  and  by  refusing  to  take  due 
cognizance  of  it  Congress  would  simply  stultify  itself.  The 
opposition  then  tried  to  clog  the  measure  by  proposing 
amendments,  but  they  were  outgeneralled,  and  after  eight 
days'  discussion  it  was  voted  that  the  new  Constitution, 
together  with  Washington's  letter,  "be  transmitted  to  the 
several  legislatures,  in  order  to  be  submitted  to  a  convention 
of  delegates  in  each  state  by  the  people  thereof,  in  con 
formity  to  the  resolves  of  the  convention." 

The  submission  of  the  Constitution  to  the  people  of  the 
states  was  the  signal  for  the  first  formation  of  political 
parties  on  a  truly  national  issue.  During  the  war  there  had 
indeed  been  Whigs  and  Tories,  but  their  strife  had  not  been 
like  the  ordinary  strife  of  political  parties  ;  it  was  actual  war 
fare.  Irredeemably  discredited  from  the  outset,  the  Tories 
had  been  overridden  and  outlawed  from  one  end  of  the 
Union  to  the  other.  They  had  never  been  able  to  hold  up 


1787 


CROWNING   THE   WORK 


331 


tary  usage  was  doubtless  on  the  side  of  the  Antifederalists, 
but  the  majority  were  clamorous,  and  overwhelmed  them 
with  cries  of  "  Question,  question ! "  The  question  was 
then  put,  and  carried  by  43  votes  against  19,  and  the  house 


adjourned  till  four  o'clock.  Before  going  to  their  dinners 
the  nineteen  held  an  indignation  meeting,  at  which  it  was 
decided  that  they  would  foil  these  outrageous  proceedings  by 
staying  away.  It  took  forty-seven  to  make  a  quorum,  and 
without  these  malcontents  the  assembly  numbered  but  forty- 
five.  When  the  house  was  called  to  order  after  dinner,  it 
was  found  there  were  but  forty-five  members  present.  The 


332  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

sergeant-at-arms  was  sent  to  summon  the  delinquents,  but 
they  defied  him,  and  so  it  became  necessary  to  adjourn  till 
next  morning.  It  was  now  the  turn  of  the  Federalists  to 
uncork  the  vials  of  wrath.  The  affair  was  discussed  in  the 
taverns  till  after  midnight,  the  nineteen  were 

How  to 

make  a        abused   without    stint,    and   soon   after   breakfast, 

quorum  .  r       , 

next  morning,  two  of  them  were  visited  by  a 
crowd  of  men,  who  broke  into  their  lodgings  and  dragged 
them  off  to  the  state  house,  where  they  were  forcibly  held 
down  in  their  seats,  growling  and  muttering  curses.  This 
made  a  quorum,  and  a  state  convention  was  immediately 
appointed  for  the  2Oth  of  November.  Before  these  pro 
ceedings  were  concluded,  an  express-rider  brought  the  news 
from  New  York  that  Congress  had  submitted  the  Constitu 
tion  to  the  judgment  of  the  states. 

And  now  there  ensued  such  a  war  of  pamphlets,  broad 
sides,  caricatures,  squibs,  and  stump-speeches  as  had  never 
been  seen  in  .America.  Cato  and  Aristides,  Cincinnatus 
and  Plain  Truth,  were  out  in  full  force.  What  was  the 
matter  with  the  old  confederation  ?  asked  the  Antifederal- 
ists.  Had  it  not  conducted  a  glorious  and  triumphant  war  ? 
Had  it  not  set  us  free  from  the  oppression  of  England  ? 
That  there  was  some  trouble  now  in  the  country  could  not 
be  denied,  but  all  would  be  right  if  people  would  only  curb 
their  extravagance,  wear  homespun  clothes,  and  obey  the 
laws.  There  was  government  enough  in  the  country 
already.  This  Philadelphia  convention  ought  to  be  dis 
trusted.  Some  of  its  members,  such  as  John  Dickinson 
and  Robert  Morris,  had  opposed  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  Pretty  men  these,  to  be  offering  us  a  new  gov 
ernment  !  You  might  be  sure  there  was  a  British  cloven 
foot  in  it  somewhere.  Their  convention  had  sat  four  months 
with  closed  doors,  as  if  they  were  afraid  to  let  people  know 
what  they  were  about.  Nobody  could  tell  what  secret  con 
spiracies  against  American  liberty  might  not  have  been 
hatched  in  all  that  time.  One  thing  was  sure  :  the  conven 
tion  had  squabbled.  Some  members  had  gone  home  in  a 


1787  CROWNING   THE   WORK  335 


BOSTON    IN    1790 

upon  the  people  of  the  states.  When  the  news  from  Tren 
ton  was  received  in  Pennsylvania,  there  was  great  rejoicing 
in  the  eastern  counties,  while  beyond  the  Susquehanna  there 
were  threats  of  armed  rebellion.  On  the  day  after  Christ 
mas,  as  the  Federalists  of  Carlisle  were  about  to  light  a  bon 
fire  on  the  common  and  fire  a  salute,  they  were  driven  off 
the  field  by  a  mob  armed  with  bludgeons,  their  rickety  old 
cannon  was  spiked,  and  an  almanac  for  the  new  year,  con 
taining  a  copy  of  the  Constitution,  was  duly  cursed,  and 
then  burned.  Next  day  the  Federalists,  armed  with  mus 
kets,  came  back,  and  went  through  their  ceremonies.  Their 
opponents  did  not  venture  to  molest  them ;  but  after  they 
had  dispersed,  an  Antifederalist  demonstration  was  made, 
and  effigies  of  James  Wilson  and  Thomas  McKean,  another 
prominent  Federalist,  were  dragged  to  the  common,  and 
there  burned  at  the  stake. 

The  action  of  Delaware  and  New  Jersey  had  shown  that 
the  Antifederalists  could  not  build  any  hopes  upon  the 
antagonism  between  large  and  small  states.  It  was  thought, 
however,  that  the  southern  states  would  unite  in  opposing 
the  Constitution  from  their  dread  of  becoming  comme.r- 


336  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

dally  subjected  to  New  England.  But  the  compromise  on 
the  slave-trade  had  broken  through  this  opposition. 
On  the  2d  of  January,  1788,  the  Constitution  was 
ia882'con-  ratified  in  Georgia  without  a  word  of  dissent.  One 
necticut,  week  later  Connecticut  ratified  by  a  vote  of  128  to 

Jan-  9  r  i         r  i 

40,  after  a  session  of  only  five  days. 

The  hopes  of  the  Antifederalists  now  rested  upon  Massa 
chusetts,  where  the  state  convention  assembled  on  the  Qth 
of  January,  the  same  day  on  which  that  of  Connecticut  broke 
up.  Should  Massachusetts  refuse  to  ratify,  there  would  be 
The  out-  no  hope  for  the  Constitution.  Even  should  nine 
Massachu-  states  adopt  it  without  her,  no  one  supposed  a 
setts  Federal  Union  feasible  from  which  so  great  a  state 

should  be  excluded.  Her  action,  too,  would  have  a  marked 
effect  upon  other  states.  It  could  not  be  denied  that  the 
outlook  in  Massachusetts  was  far  from  encouraging.  The 
embers  of  the^Shays  rebellion  still  smouldered  there,  and  in 
the  mountain  counties  of  Worcester  and  Berkshire  \vere_ 
heard  loud  murmurs  of  discontent.  Laws  impairing  the 
obligation  of  contracts  were  just  what  these  hard-pressed 
jarmers  desired,  and  by  the  proposed  Constitution  all  such 
laws  were  forever  prohibited.  The  people  of  the  district  of 
Maine,  which  had  formed  part  of  Massachusetts  for  nearly  a 
century,  were  anxious  to  set  up  an  independent  government 
for  themselves  ;  and  they  feared  that  if  they  were  to  enter 
into  the  new  and  closer  Federal  Union  as  part  of  that  state, 
they  might  hereafter  find  it  impossible  to  detach  themselves.^" 
For  this  reason  half  of  the  Maine  delegates  were  opposed  to 
the  Constitution,  fin  none  of  the  thirteen  states,  moreover, 
was  there  a  more  intense  devotion  to  state  rights  than  in 
Massachusetts.  Nowhere  had  local  self-government  reached 
a  higher  degree  of  efficiency ;  nowhere  had  the  town  meet 
ing  flourished  with  such  vigour.)  It  was  especially  charac 
teristic  of  men  trained  in  the  town  meeting  to  look  with  sus 
picion  upon  all  delegated  power,  upon  all  authority  that  was 
to  be  exercised  from  a  distance.  They  believed  it  to  be 
all  important  that  people  should  manage  their  own  affairs, 


JOHN  HANCOCK,  Efq; 
PRE  SIDENT  o/J/ie/  AMERICAN  CONGRE  s  $ 


338  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

instead  of  having  them  managed  by  other  people  ;  and  so 
far  had  this  principle  been  carried  that  the  towns  of  Massa 
chusetts  were  like  little  semi-independent  republics,  and  the 
state  was  like  a  league  of  such  republics,  whose  representa 
tives,  sitting  in  the  state  legislature,  were  like  delegates 
strictly  bound  by  instructions  rather  than  untrammelled 
members  of  a  deliberative  body.  To  men  trained  in  such  a 
school,  it  would  naturally  seem  that  the  new  Constitution 
delegated  altogether  too  much  power  to  a  governing  body 
which  must  necessarily  be  remote  from  most  of  its  constitu 
ents.  It  was  feared  that  some  sort  of  tyranny  might  grow 
out  of  this,  and  such  fears  were  entertained  by  men  who 
were  not  in  the  slightest  degree  infected  with  Shaysism,  as 
the  political  disease  of  the  inland  counties  was  then  called. 
Such  fears  were  entertained  by  one  of  the  greatest  citizens 
that  Massachusetts  has  ever  produced,  the  man  who  has 
been  well  described  as  preeminently  "  the  man  of  the  town 
meeting,"  -  Samuel  Adams.  The  limitations  of  this  great 
man,  as  well  as  his  powers,  were  those  which  belonged  to 
him  as  chief  among  the  men  of  English  race  who  have 
swayed  society  through  the  medium  of  the  ancient  folk 
mote.  At  this  time  he  was  believed  by  many  to  be  hostile 
to  the  new  Constitution,  and  his  influence  in  Massachusetts 
was  still  greater  than  that  of  any  other  man.  Besides  this, 
it  was  thought  that  the  governor,  John  Hancock,  was  half 
hearted  in  his  support  of  the  Constitution,  and  it  was  in 
everybody's  mouth  that  Elbridge  Gerry  had  refused  to  set 
his  name  to  that  document  because  he  felt  sure  it  would 
create  a  tyranny. 

Such  symptoms  encouraged  the  Antifederalists  in  the 
hope  that  Massachusetts  would  reject  the  Constitution  and 
ruin  the  plans  of  the  " visionary  young  men"  —as  Richard 
Henry  Lee  called  them  —  who  had  swayed  the  Federal  Con 
vention.  But  there  were  strong  forces  at  work  in  the  oppo 
site  direction.  In  Boston  and  all  the  large  coast  towns,  even 
those  of  the  Maine  district,  the  dominant  feeling  was  Feder 
alist.  All  well-to-do  people  had  been  alarmed  by  the  Shays 


i;88  CROWNING   THE   WORK  339 

insurrection,  and  merchants,  shipwrights,  and  artisans  of 
every  sort  were  convinced  that  there  was  no  prosperity  in 
store  for  them  until  the  federal  government  should  have 
control  over  commerce,  and  be  enabled  to  make  its  strength 
felt  on  the  seas  and  in  Europe.  In  these  views  Samuel 
Adams  shared  so  thoroughly  that  his  attitude  toward  the 
Constitution  at  this  moment  was  really  that  of  a  waverer 


A 

\ 

X 


rather  than   an  opponent.     Amid   balancing  considerations 
he  found  it  for  some  time  hard  to  make  up  his  mind. 

In  the  convention  which  met  on  the  gth  of  January  there 
sat  Gorham,  Strong,  and  King,  who  had  taken  part  in  the 
Federal  Convention.  There  were  also  Samuel  Adams  and 
James  Bowdoin ;  the  revolutionary  generals,  Heath  and 
Lincoln  ;  and  the  rising  statesmen,  Sedgwick,  Parsons,  and 
Fisher  Ames,  whose  eloquence  was  soon  to  become  so 
famous.  There  were  twenty-four  clergymen,  of  various 
denominations,  — men  of  sound  scholarship,  and  several  of 


340 


THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD 


CHAP.  VII 


them  eminent  for  worldly  wisdom  and  liberality  of  temper. 
Governor  Hancock  presided,  gorgeous  in  crimson  velvet  and 
finest  laces,  while  about  the  room  sat  many  browned  and 
weatherbeaten  farmers,  among  whom  were  at  least  eighteen 
who  hardly  a  year  ago  had  marched  over  the  pine-clad 
mountain  ridges  of  Petersham,  under  the  banner  of  the  rebel 
Shays.  It  was  a  wholesome  no  less  than  a  generous  policy 
that  let  these  men  come  in  and  freely  speak  their  minds. 
The  air  was  thus  the  sooner  cleared  of  discontent ;  the 
disease  was  thus  the  more  likely  to  heal  itself.  In  all  there 
were  three  hundred  and  fifty-five  delegates  present,  —  a 
much  larger  number  than  took  part  in  any  of  the  other  state 
conventions.  The  people  of  all  parts  of  Massachusetts  were 


1788  CROWNING   THE   WORK  341 

thoroughly  represented,  as  befitted  the  state  which  was  pre 
eminent  in  the  active  political  life  of  its  town  meetings, 
and  the  work  done  here  was  in  some  respects  decisive  in  its 
effect  upon  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 

The  convention  began  by  overhauling  that  document  from 
beginning  to  end,  discussing  it  clause  by  clause  with  some 
what  wearisome  minuteness.  Some  of  the  objections  seem 
odd  to  us  at  this  time,  with  our  larger  experience.  Debates  in 
It  was  several  days  before  the  minds  of  the  coun-  *hus^ttsSa" 
try  members  could  be  reconciled  to  the  election  of  convention 
representatives  for  so  long  a  period  as  two  years.  They  had 
not  been  wont  to  delegate  power  to  anybody  for  so  long  a 
time,  not  even  to  their  selectmen,  whom  they  had  always 
under  their  eyes.  How  much  more  dangerous  was  it  likely  to 
prove  if  delegated  authority  were  to  be  exercised  for  so  long 
a  period  at  some  distant  federal  city,  such  as  the  Constitution 
contemplated !  There  was  a  vague  dread  that  in  some 
indescribable  way  the  new  Congress  might  contrive  to  make 
its  sittings  perpetual,  and  thus  become  a  tyrannical  oligarchy, 
which  might  tax  the  people  without  their  consent.  And 
then  as  to  this  federal  city,  there  were  some  who  did  not  like 
the  idea.  A  district  ten  miles  square !  Was  not  that  a 
great  space  to  give  up  to  the  uncontrolled  discretion  of  the 
federal  government,  wherein  it  could  wreak  its  tyrannical 
will  without  let  or  hindrance  ?  One  of  the  delegates  thought 
he  could  be  reconciled  to  the  new  Constitution  if  this  dis 
trict  could  only  be  narrowed  down  to  one  mile  square.  And 
then  there  was  the  power  granted  to  Congress  to  maintain  a 
standing  army,  of  which  the  president  was  to  be  ex  officio 
commander-in-chief.  Did  not  this  open  the  door  for  a  Crom 
well  ?  It  was  to  be  a  standing  army  for  at  least  two  years, 
since  this  was  the  shortest  period  between  elections.  Why, 
even  the  British  Parliament,  since  1688,  did  not  keep  up  a 
standing  army  for  more  than  one  year  at  a  time,  but  renewed 
its  existence  annually  under  what  was  termed  the  Mutiny 
Act.  But  what  need  of  a  standing  army  at  all  ?  Would 
it  not  be  sure  to  provoke  needless  disorders  ?  Had  they 


342  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

already  forgotten  the  Boston  Massacre,  in  spite  of  all  the 
orations  that  had  been  delivered  in  the  Old  South  Meeting- 
House  ?  A  militia,  organized  under  the  town  meeting  sys 
tem,  was  surely  all-sufficient.  Such  a  militia  had  won  glori 
ous  triumphs  at  Lexington  and  Bennington  ;  and  at  King's 
Mountain,  had  not  an  army  of  militia  surrounded  and  cap 
tured  an  army  of  regulars  led  by  one  of  England's  most 
skilful  officers  ?  What  more  could  you  ask  ?  Clearly  this 
plan  for  a  standing  army  foreboded  tyranny.  Upon  this 
point  Mr.  Nason,  from  the  Maine  district,  had  his  say,  in 
tones  of  inimitable  bombast.  "Had  I  the  voice  of  Jove," 
said  he,  "  I  would  proclaim  it  throughout  the  world  ;  and  had 
I  an  arm  like  Jove,  I  would  hurl  from  the  globe  those  villains 
that  would  dare  attempt  to  establish  in  our  country  a  stand 
ing  army ! " 

Next  came  the  complaint  that  the  Constitution  did  not 
recognize  the  existence  of  God,  and  provided  no  religious 
tests  for  candidates  for  federal  offices.  But,  strange  to  say, 
this  objection  did  not  come  from  the  clergy.  It  was  urged 
by  some  of  the  country  members,  but  the  ministers  in  the 
Liberal  at  conventi°n  were  nearly  unanimous  in  opposing  it. 
titude  of  There  had  been  a  remarkable  change  of  sentiment 
among  the  clergy  of  this  state,  which  had  begun 
its  existence  as  a  theocracy,  in  which  none  'but  church 
members  could  vote  or  hold  office.  The  seeds  of  modern 
liberalism  had  been  planted  in  their  minds.  When  Amos 
Singletary  of  Sutton  declared  it  to  be  scandalous  that  a 
Papist  or  an  infidel  should  be  as  eligible  to  office  as  a 
Christian,  —  a  remark  which  naively  assumed  that  Roman 
Catholics  were  not  Christians,  —  the  Rev.  Daniel  Shute  of 
Hingham  replied  that  no  conceivable  advantage  could  result 
from  a  religious  test.  Yes,  said  the  Rev.  Philip  Payson  of 
Chelsea,  "  human  tribunals  for  the  consciences  of  men  are 
impious  encroachments  upon  the  prerogatives  of  God.  A 
religious  test,  as  a  qualification  for  office,  would  have  been 
a  great  blemish."  "  In  reason  and  in  the  Holy  Scripture," 
said  the  Rev.  Isaac  Backus  of  Middleborough,  "  religion  is 


I788  CROWNING   THE    \VORK  343 

ever  a  matter  between  God  and  the  individual ;  the  imposing 
of  religious  tests  hath  been  the  greatest  engine  of  tyranny 
in  the  world."  With  this  liberal  stand  firmly  taken  by  the 
ministers,  the  religious  objection  was  speedily  overruled. 

Then  the  clause  which  allows  Congress  to  regulate  the 
times,  places,  and  manner  of  holding  federal  elections  was 
severely  criticised.  It  was  feared  that  Congress  would  take 
advantage  of  this  provision  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  elec 
tions.  It  was  further  objected  that  members  of  Congress, 
being  paid  their  salaries  from  the  federal  treasury,  would 
become  too  independent  of  their  constituents.  Federal  col 
lectors  of  revenue,  moreover,  would  not  be  so  likely  to  act 
with  moderation  and  justice  as  collectors  appointed  by  the 
state.  Then  it  was  very  doubtful  whether  the  people  could 
support  the  expense  of  an 
elaborate  federal  govern 
ment.  They  were  already 
scarcely  able  to  pay  their 
town,  county,  and  state  tax 
es  ;  was  it  to  be  supposed 
they  could  bear  the  addi 
tional  burden  with  which 
federal  taxation  would  load 
them  ?  Then  the  compro 
mise  on  the  slave-trade  was 
fiercely  attacked.  They  did 
not  wish  to  have  a  hand  in 
licensing  this  nefarious  traf 
fic  for  twenty  years.  But 
it  was  urged,  on  the  other 

hand,  that  by  prohibiting  the  foreign  slave-trade  after  1808 
the  Constitution  was  really  dealing  a  death-blow  to  slavery  ; 
and  this  opinion  prevailed. 

During  the  whole  course  of  the  discussion,  observed  the 
Rev.  Samuel  West  of  New  Bedford,  it  seemed  to  be  taken 
for  granted  that  the  federal  government  was  going  to  be 
put  into  the  hands  of  crafty  knaves.  "  I  wish,"  said  he, 


344  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

"  that  the  gentlemen  who  have  started  so  many  possible 
objections  would  try  to  show  us  that  what  they  so  much 
deprecate  is  probable.  .  .  .  Because  power  may  be  abused, 
shall  we  be  reduced  to  anarchy  ?  What  hinders  our  state 
legislatures  from  abusing  their  powers?  .  .  .  May  we  not 
rationally  suppose  that  the  persons  we  shall  choose  to  ad 
minister  the  government  will  be,  in  general,  good  men  ? " 
General  Thompson  said  he  was  surprised  to  hear  such  an 
argument  from  a  clergyman,  who  was  professionally  bound 
to  maintain  that  all  men  were  totally  depraved.  For  his 
part  he  believed  they  were  so,  and  he  could  prove  it  from 
the  Old  Testament.  "I  would  not  trust  them,"  echoed 
Abraham  White  of  Bristol,  "though  every  one  of  them 
should  be  a  Moses." 

The  feeling  of  distrust  was  strongest  among  the  farmers 
from  the  mountain  districts.  As  Rufus  King  said,  they 
objected,  not  so  much  to  the  Constitution  as  to  the  men  who 
made  it  and  the  men  who  sang  its  praises.  They  hated 
lawyers,  and  were  jealous  of  wealthy  merchants.  "These 
lawyers,"  said  Amos  Singletary,  "and  men  of  learning,  and 
moneyed  men  that  talk  so  finely  and  gloss  over  matters  so 
smoothly,  to  make  us  poor  illiterate  people  swallow  the  pill, 
expect  to  get  into  Congress  themselves.  They  mean  to  be 
managers  of  the  Constitution.  They  mean  to  get  all  the 
money  into  their  hands,  and  then  they  will  swallow  up  us 
little  folk,  like  the  great  Leviathan,  Mr.  President  ;  yes,  just 
as  the  whale  swallowed  up  Jonah."  Here  a  more  liberal- 
minded  farmer,  Jonathan  Smith  of  Lanesborough,  rose  to 
reply  with  references  to  the  Shays  rebellion,  which  presently 
called  forth  cries  of  "  Order !  "  from  some  of  the  members. 
Samuel  Adams  said  the  gentleman  was  quite  in  order,  — 

Speech  of  ^et  ^m  8°  on  m  ms  own  wav-  "I  am  a  plain 
a  Berkshire  man,"  said  Mr.  Smith,  "and  am  not  used  to  speak 
in  public,  but  I  am  going  to  show  the  effects  of 
anarchy,  that  you  may  see  why  I  wish  for  good  government. 
Last  winter  people  took  up  arms,  and  then,  if  you  went  to 
speak  to  them,  you  had  the  musket  of  death  presented  to 


1788 


CROWNING   THE    WORK 


345 


your  breast.  They  would  rob  you  of  your  property,  threaten 
to  burn  your  houses,  oblige  you  to  be  on  your  guard  night 
and  day.  Alarms  spread  from  town  to  town,  families  were 
broken  up  ;  the  tender  mother  would  cry,  *  Oh,  my  son  is 
among  them !  What  shall  I  do  for  my  child  ?  '  Some 
were  taken  captive  ;  children  taken  out  of  their  schools  and 
carried  away.  .  .  .  How  dreadful  was  this  !  Our  distress 
was  so  great  that  we  should  have  been  glad  to  snatch  at 
anything  that  looked  like  a  government.  .  .  .  Now,  Mr. 


TOMB    OF   JONATHAN    SMITH 


President,  when  I  saw  this  Constitution,  I  found  that  it  was 
a  cure  for  these  disorders.  I  got  a  copy  of  it,  and  read  it 
over  and  over.  ...  I  did  not  go  to  any  lawyer,  to  ask  his 
opinion  ;  we  have  no  lawyer  in  our  town,  and  we  do  well 
enough  without.  My  honourable  old  daddy  there  [pointing 
to  Mr.  Singletary]  won't  think  that  I  expect  to  be  a  Con 
gressman,  and  swallow  up  the  liberties  of  the  people.  I 
never  had  any  post,  nor  do  I  want  one.  But  I  don't  think 
the  worse  of  the  Constitution  because  lawyers,  and  men  of 
learning,  and  moneyed  men  are  fond  of  it.  I  am  not  of  such 
a  jealous  make.  They  that  are  honest  men  themselves  are 


346  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

not  apt  to  suspect  other  people.  .  .  .  Brother  farmers,  let 
us  suppose  a  case,  now.  Suppose  you  had  a  farm  of  50 
acres,  and  your  title  was  disputed,  and  there  was  a  farm  of 
5,000  acres  joined  to  you  that  belonged  to  a  man  of  learn 
ing,  and  his  title  was  involved  in  the  same  difficulty  :  would 
you  not  be  glad  to  have  him  for  your  friend,  rather  than  to 
stand  alone  in  the  dispute  ?  Well,  the  case  is  the  same. 
These  lawyers,  these  moneyed  men,  these  men  of  learning, 
are  all  embarked  in  the  same  cause  with  us,  and  we  must 
all  sink  or  swim  together.  Shall  we  throw  the  Constitution 
overboard  because  it  does  not  please  us  all  alike  ?  Suppose 
two  or  three  of  you  had  been  at  the  pains  to  break  up  a 
piece  of  rough  land  and  sow  it  with  wheat  :  would  you  let  it 
lie  waste  because  you  could  not  agree  what  sort  of  a  fence 
to  make  ?  Would  it  not  be  better  to  put  up  a  fence  that  did 
not  please  every  one's  fancy,  rather  than  keep  disputing 
about  it  until  the  wild  beasts  came  in  and  devoured  the 
crop  ?  Some  gentlemen  say,  Don't  be  in  a  hurry  ;  take 
time  to  consider.  I  say,  There  is  a  time  to  sow  and  a  time 
to  reap.  We  sowed  our  seed  when  we  sent  men  to  the 
Federal  Convention,  now  is  the  time  to  reap  the  fruit  of  our 
labour  ;  and  if  we  do  not  do  it  now,  I  am  afraid  we  shall 
never  have  another  opportunity." 


It  may  be  doubted  whether  all  the  eloquence  of  Fisher 
Ames  could  have  stated  the  case  more  forcibly  than  it  was 
put  by  this  plain  farmer  from  the  Berkshire  hills.  Upon 
Ames,  with  King,  Parsons,  Bowdoin,  and  Strong,  fell  the 
principal  work  in  defending  the  Constitution.  For  the  first 
.  two  weeks,  Samuel  Adams  scarcely  opened  his 

Attitude  of  i  •• 

Samuel        mouth,  but  listened  with  anxious  care  to  everything 

that  was  said  on  either   side.      The  convention  was 

so  evenly  divided  that  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  his  sin 

gle   voice   would   decide    the    result.       Every   one   eagerly 


i788 


CROWNING    THE    WORK 


347 


awaited  his  opinion.  In  the  debate  on  the  two  years'  term 
of  members  of  Congress,  he  had  asked  Caleb  Strong  the 
reason  why  the  Federal  Convention  had  decided  upon  so 
long  a  term  ;  and  when  it  was  explained  as  a  necessary  com- 


StAMZZEZ*  AIMMS  Efq, 
it  DELEGATE  s/^  i  ^^^i^^^^^ 
i&tfa£&^^  , 


348  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

promise  between  the  views  of  so  many  delegates,  he  replied, 
"  I  am  satisfied."  "  Will  Mr.  Adams  kindly  say  that  again  ?  " 
asked  one  of  the  members.  "  I  am  satisfied,"  he  repeated  ; 
and  not  another  word  was  said  on  the  subject  in  all  those 
weeks.  So  profound  was  the  faith  of  this  intelligent  and 
skeptical  and  independent  people  in  the  sound  judgment  and 
unswerving  integrity  of  the  Father  of  the  Revolution  !  As 

the  weeks  went  by,  and  the  issue 
seemed  still  dubious,  the  work- 
ingmen  of  Boston,  shipwrights 
and  brass  -  founders  and  other 
mechanics,  decided  to  express 
their  opinion  in  a  way  that  they 
knew  Samuel  Adams  would 
heed.  They  held  a  meeting  at 

SIGN  OF  GREEN  DRAGON  TAVERN     the  Green  Dragon  tavern,  passed 

resolutions  in  favour  of  the  Con 
stitution,  and  appointed  a  committee,  with  Paul  Revere  at 
its  head,  to  make  known  these  resolutions  to  the  great  pop 
ular  leader.  When  Adams  had  read  the  paper,  he  asked  of 
Paul  Revere,  "  How  many  mechanics  were  at  the  Green 
Dragon  when  these  resolutions  passed ?"  "More,  sir,  than 
the  Green  Dragon  could  hold."  "And  where  were  the  rest, 
Mr.  Revere?"  "In  the  streets,  sir."  "And  how  many 
were  in  the  streets  ? "  "  More,  sir,  than  there  are  stars  in 
the  sky." 

Between  Samuel  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson  there  were 
several  points  of  resemblance,  the  chief  of  which  was  an 
intense  faith  in  the  sound  common  sense  of  the  mass  of  the 
people.  This  faith  was  one  of  the  strongest  attributes  of 
both  these  great  men.  It  has  usually  been  supposed  that  it 
was  this  incident  of  the  meeting  at  the  Green  Dragon  that 
determined  Adams's  final  attitude  in  the  state  convention. 
Unquestionably,  such  a  demonstration  must  have  had  great 
weight  with  him.  But  at  the  same  time  the  affair  was 
taking  such  a  turn  as  would  have  decided  him,  even  without 
the  aid  of  this  famous  mass-meeting.  The  long  delay  in  the 


1788  CROWNING   THE   WORK  349 

decision  of  the  Massachusetts  convention  had  carried  the 
excitement  to  fever  heat  throughout  the  country.  Not  only 
were  people  from  New  Hampshire  and  New  York  and 
naughty  Rhode  Island  waiting  anxiously  about  Boston  to 
catch  every  crumb  of  news  they  could  get,  but  intrigues  were 
going  on,  as  far  south  as  Virginia,  to  influence  the  result. 
On  the  2  ist  of  January  the  "  Boston  Gazette"  came  out  with 


a  warning,  headed  by  enormous  capitals  with  three  exclama 
tion-points  :  "  Bribery  and  Corruption  !  !  !  The  most  diabol 
ical  plan  is  on  foot  to  corrupt  the  members  of  the  convention 
who  oppose  the  adoption  of  the  new  Constitution.  Large 
sums  of  money  have  been  brought  from  a  neighbouring  state 


350  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

for  that  purpose,  contributed  by  the  wealthy.  If  so,  is  it 
not  probable  there  may  be  collections  for  the  same  accursed 
purpose  nearer  home  ? "  No  adequate  investigation  ever 
determined  whether  this  charge  was  true  or  not.  We  may 
hope  that  it  was  ill-founded ;  but  our  general  knowledge  of 
human  nature  must  compel  us  to  admit  that  there  may  have 
been  a  grain  of  truth  in  it.  But  what  was  undeniable  was 
that  Richard  Henry  Lee  wrote  a  letter  to  Gerry,  urging  that 
Massachusetts  should  not  adopt  the  Constitution  without 
insisting  upon  sundry  amendments  ;  and  in  order  to  consider 
these  amendments,  it  was  suggested  that  there  should  be 
another  Federal  Convention.  At  this  anxious  crisis,  Wash- 
Washing-  ington  suddenly  threw  himself  into  the  breach  with 
fui^ugges-  tnat  infallible  judgment  of  his  which  always  saw 
the  way  to  victory.  "  If  another  Federal  Conven 
tion  is  attempted,"  said  Washington,  "  its  members  will  be 
more  discordant,  and  will  agree  upon  no  general  plan.  The 
Constitution  is  the  best  that  can  be  obtained  at  this  time. 
.  .  .  The  Constitution  or  disunion  are  before  us  to  choose 
from.  If  the  Constitution  is  our  choice,  a  constitutional 
door  is  open  for  amendments,  and  they  may  be  adopted  in  a 
peaceable  manner,  without  tumult  or  disorder." 

When  this  advice  of  Washington's  reached  Boston,  it  set 
in  motion  a  train  of  events  which  soon  solved  the  difficulty, 
both  for  Massachusetts  and  for  the  other  states  which  had 
not  yet  made  up  their  mind.  Chief  among  the  objections  to 
the  Constitution  had  been  the  fact  that  it  did  not  contain  a 
bill  of  rights.  It  did  not  guarantee  religious  liberty,  freedom 
of  speech  and  of  the  press,  or  the  right  of  the  people  peace 
fully  to  assemble  and  petition  the  government  for  a  redress 
of  grievances.  It  did  not  provide  against  the  quartering  of 
soldiers  upon  the  people  in  time  of  peace.  It  did  not  pro 
vide  against  general  search-warrants,  nor  did  it  securely 
prescribe  the  methods  by  which  individuals  should  be  held 
to  answer  for  criminal  offences.  It  did  not  even  provide 
that  nobody  should  be  burned  at  the  stake  or  stretched  on 
the  rack,  for  holding  peculiar  opinions  about  the  nature  of 


1788  CROWNING   THE   WORK  351 

God  or  the  origin  of  evil.  That  such  objections  to  the 
Constitution  seem  strange  to  us  to-day  is  partly  due  to  the 
determined  attitude  of  the  men  who,  amid  all  the  troubles 
of  the  time,  would  not  consent  to  any  arrangement  from 
which  such  safeguards  to  free  thinking  and  free  living 
should  be  omitted.  The  friends  of  the  Constitution  in  Bos 
ton  now  proposed  that  the  convention,  while  adopting  it, 
should  suggest  sundry  amendments  containing  the  essential 
provisions  of  a  bill  of  rights.  It  was  not  intended  that 
the  ratification  should  be  conditional.  Under  the  circum 
stances,  a  conditional  ratification  might  prove  as  disastrous 
as  rejection.  It  might  lead  to  a  second  Federal  Conven 
tion,  in  which  the  good  work  already  accomplished  might 
be  undone.  The  ratification  was  to  be  absolute,  and  the 
amendments  were  offered  in  the  hope  that  action  would  be 
taken  upon  them  as  soon  as  the  new  government  should  go 
into  operation.  There  could  be  little  doubt  that  the  sug 
gestion  would  be  heeded,  not  only  from  the  importance  of 
Massachusetts  in  the  Union,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  Vir 
ginia  and  other  states  would  be  sure  to  follow  her  example 
in  suggesting  such  amendments.  This  forecast  proved 
quite  correct,  and  it  was  in  this  way  that  the  first  ten 
amendments  originated,  which  were  acted  on  by  Congress 
in  1790,  and  became  part  of  the  Constitution  in  1791. 

As  soon  as  this  plan  had  been  matured,  Hancock  pro 
posed  it  to  the  convention  ;  the  hearty  support  of  Adams 
was  immediately  insured,  and  within  a  week  from  that  time, 
on  the  6th  of  February,  the  Constitution  was  ratified  by  the 
narrow   majority  of   187  votes    against    168.      On 
that  same  day  Jefferson,  in  Paris,  wrote  to   Madi-   setTs^ati"" 
son  :  "  I  wish  with  all  my  soul  that  the  nine  first    £osinPg°~ 
conventions  may  accept  the  new  Constitution,  to 


secure  to  us  the  good  it  contains  ;  but  I  equally   Feb.  6, 
wish    that   the  four   latest,    whichever   they   may 
be,  may  refuse  to  accede  to  it  till  a  declaration  of  rights  be 
annexed  ;  but  no  objection  to  the  new  form  must  produce 
a  schism  in  our  Union."     But  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  the 


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354 


THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD 


CHAP.  VII 


action  of  Massachusetts,  he  approved  it  as  preferable  to  his 
own  idea,  and  he  wrote  home  urging  Virginia  to  follow  the 
example. 

Massachusetts  was  thus  the  sixth  state  to  ratify  the  Con 
stitution.  On  that  day  the  name  of  the  Long  Lane  by  the 
meeting-house  where  the  convention  had  sat  was  changed 
to  Federal  Street.  The  Boston  people,  said  Henry  Knox, 


FEDERAL    STREET    CHURCH,    BOSTON 


had  quite  lost  their  senses  with  joy.  The  two  counties  of 
Worcester  and  Berkshire  had  given  but  14  yeas  against  59 
nays,  but  the  farmers  went  home  declaring  that  they  should 
cheerfully  abide  by  the  decision  of  the  majority.  Not  a 
murmur  was  heard  from  any  one. 

About  the  time  that  the  Massachusetts  convention  broke 
up,  that  of  New  Hampshire  assembled  at  Exeter  ;  but  after 
a  brief  discussion  it  was  decided  to  adjourn  until  June,  in 
order  to  see  how  the  other  states  would  act.  On  the  2ist 


1788  CROWNING    THE   WORK  355 

of  April  the  Maryland  convention  assembled  at  Annapolis ; 
and  Washington  expressed  a  hope  that  it  would  not  adjourn 
without  coming  to  a  decision,  for  the  Antifederalists  were 
gloating  over  the  postponement  in  New  Hampshire.     Their 
glee  was  short-lived,  however.     Some  of  Maryland's  strong 
est  men,  such  as  Luther  Martin  and  Samuel  Chase,    Ma 
were  Antifederalists ;  but  their  efforts  were  of  no   ratifies,0 
avail.     After  a  session  of  five  days  the  Constitu-   Apnl 
tion  was  ratified  by  a  vote  of  63  to  n.     Whatever  damage 
New  Hampshire  might  have  done  was  thus  more  than  made 
good. 

The  eyes  of  the  whole  country  were  now  turned  upon  the 
eighth  state,  South  Carolina.  Her  convention  was  to  meet 
at  Charleston  on  the  I2th  of  May,  the  anniversary  of  the 
day  on  which  General  Lincoln  had  surrendered  that  city  to 
Sir  Henry  Clinton ;  but  there  had  been  a  decisive  prelim 
inary  struggle  in  the  legislature  in  January.  The  most 
active  of  the  Antifederalists  was  Rawlins  Lowndes,  who 
had  opposed  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Lowndes 
was  betrayed  into  silliness.  "We  are  now,"  said  he,  "under 
a  most  excellent  constitution,  —  a  blessing  from  Heaven, 
that  has  stood  the  test  of  time  [!  !],  and  given  us  liberty  and 
independence  ;  yet  we  are  impatient  to  pull  down  that  fab 
ric  which  we  raised  at  the  expense  of  our  blood."  This  was 
not  very  convincing  to  the  assembly,  most  of  the  members 
knowing  full  well  that  the  fabric  had  not  stood  the  test  of 
time,  but  had  already  tumbled  in  by  reason  of  its  vicious 
construction.  A  more  effective  plea  was  that  which  re 
ferred  to  the  slave-trade.  "  WThat  cause  is  there,"  said 
Lowndes,  "for  jealousy  of  our  importing  negroes?  Why 
confine  us  to  twenty  years  ?  Why  limit  us  at  all  ?  This 
trade  can  be  justified  on  the  principles  of  religion  Debates  in 
and  humanity.  They  do  not  like  our  having  slaves  c^roHna1' 
because  they  have  none  themselves,  and  therefore  legislature 
want  to  exclude  us  from  this  great  advantage."  Cotesworth 
Pinckney  replied  :  "  By  this  settlement  we  have  secured  an 
unlimited  importation  of  negroes  for  twenty  years.  The 


356  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

general  government  can  never  emancipate  them,  for  no  such 
authority  is  granted,  and  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that 
the  general  government  has  no  powers  but  what  are  ex 
pressly  granted  by  the  Constitution.  We  have  obtained  a 
right  to  recover  our  slaves  in  whatever  part  of  the  country 
they  may  take  refuge,  which  is  a  right  we  had  not  before. 
In  short,  considering  all  circumstances,  we  have  made  the 
best  terms  in  our  power  for  the  security  of  this  species  of 
property.  We  would  have  made  better  if  we  could  ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  I  do  not  think  them  bad." 

Perhaps  Pinckney  would  not  have  assumed  exactly  this 
tone  at  Philadelphia,  but  at  Charleston  the  argument  was 
convincing.  Lowndes  then  sounded  the  alarm  that  the  New 
England  states  would  monopolize  the  carrying-trade  and 
charge  ruinous  freights,  and  he  drew  a  harrowing  picture  of 
warehouses  packed  to  bursting  with  rice  and  indigo  spoiling 
because  the  owners  could  not  afford  to  pay  the  Yankee 
skippers'  prices  for  carrying  their  goods  to  market.  But 
Pinckney  rejoined  that  a  Yankee  shipmaster  in  quest  of 
cargoes  would  not  be  likely  to  ruin  his  own  chances  for  get 
ting  them,  and  he  called  attention  to  the  great  usefulness  of 
the  eastern  merchant  marine  as  affording  material  for  a  navy, 
and  thus  contributing  to  the  defence  of  the  country.  Finally 
Lowndes  put  in  a  plea  for  paper  money,  but  with  little  suc 
cess.  The  result  of  the  debate  set  the  matter  so  clearly 
before  the  people  that  a  great  majority  of  Federalists  were 
elected  to  the  convention.  Among  them  were  Gadsden,  the 
Rutledges  and  the  Pinckneys,  Moultrie,  and  William  Wash 
ington,  who  had  become  a  citizen  of  the  state  from  which  he 
had  helped  to  expel  the  British  invader.  The  Antifederalists 
were  largely  represented  by  men  from  the  upland  counties, 
belonging  to  a  population  in  which  there  was  considerable 
likeness  all  along  the  Appalachian  chain  of  mountains,  from 
Pennsylvania  to  the  southern  extremity  of  the  range.  There 
were  among  them  many  "moonshiners,"  as  they  were  called, 
—  distillers  of  illicit  whiskey,  —  and  they  did  not  relish  the 
idea  of  a  federal  excj.se.  At  their  head  was  Thomas  Sumter, 


i;88  CROWNING   THE   WORK  357 

a  convert  to  the  scheme  for  a  southern  confederacy.  Their 
policy  was  one  of  delay  and  obstruction,  but  it  availed  them 
little,  for  on  the  23d  of  May,  after  a  session  of  south  Car- 
eleven  days,  South  Carolina  ratified  the  Consti-  ^£y'23 
tution  by  a  vote  of  149  against  73. 

The  astute  policy  of  the  Federal  Convention  in  adopting 
the  odious  compromise  over  the  slave-trade  was  now  about 


to  bear  fruit.  In  Virginia  there  was  a  nascent  sentiment  in 
favour  of  establishing  a  separate  southern  confederacy.  By 
the  action  of  South  Carolina  all  such  possible  schemes  were 
now  nipped  in  the  bud.  Of  the  states  south  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line,  three  had  now  ratified  the  Constitution,  so  that 
any  separate  confederacy  could  now  consist  only  of  Important 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina.  The  reason  for  this  effect  upon 

&  _r.       .    .  ,         Virginia 

short-lived  separatist  feeling  in  Virginia  was  to  be 

found    in    the    complications   which   had  grown  out  of  the 

attempt  of  Spain  to  close  the  Mississippi  River.     It  will  be 


358  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vii 

remembered  that  only  two  years  before  Jay  had  actually 
recommended  to  Congress  that  the  right  to  navigate  the 
lower  Mississippi  be  surrendered  for  twenty-five  years,  in 
exchange  for  a  favourable  commercial  treaty  with  Spain. 
The  New  England  states,  caring  nothing  for  the  distant 
Mississippi,  supported  this  measure  in  Congress  ;  and  this 
narrow  and  selfish  policy  'naturally  created  alarm  in  Virginia, 
which,  in  her  district  of  Kentucky,  touched  upon  the  great 
river.  Thus  to  the  vague  dread  felt  by  the  southern  states 
in  general,  in  the  event  of  New  England's  controlling  the 
commercial  policy  of  the  government,  there  was  added,  in 
Virginia's  case,  a  specific  fear.  If  the  New  England  people 
were  thus  ready  to  barter  away  the  vital  interests  of  a  remote 
part  of  the  country,  what  might  they  not  do  ?  Would  they 
ever  stop  at  anything  so  long  as  they  could  go  on  building  up 
their  commerce  ?  This  feeling  strongly  influenced  Patrick 
Henry  in  his  opposition  to  the  Constitution  ; x  and  we  have 
seen  how  Randolph  and  Mason,  in  the  Federal  Convention, 
were  so  disturbed  at  the  power  given  to  Congress  to  regu 
late  commerce  by  a  simple  majority  of  votes  that  they 
refused  to  set  their  names  to  the  Constitution.  They 
alleged  further  reasons  for  their  refusal,  but  this  was  the 
chief  one.  They  wanted  a  two  thirds  vote  to  be  required, 
in  order  that  the  South  might  retain  the  means  of  protect 
ing  itself.  Under  these  circumstances  the  opposition  to  the 
Constitution  was  very  strong,  and  but  for  the  action  of  South 
Carolina  the  party  in  favour  of  a  separate  confederacy  might 
have  been  capable  of  doing  much  mischief.  As  it  was,  since 
that  party  had  actively  intrigued  in  South  Carolina  and 
Maryland,  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution  by  both  these 
states  was  a  direct  rebuff.  It  quite  demoralized  the  advo 
cates  of  secession.  The  paper-money  men,  moreover,  were 

1  There  were  some  who  suspected  Henry  of  working  in  favour  of  the 
scheme  for  a  separate  southern  confederacy.  See  Madison's  Works,  \. 
388  ;  Bancroft's  History  of  the  Constitution,  ii.  465.  But  clearly  he  did 
not  go  so  far  as  this.  See  Elliott's  Debates,  iii.  57,  63,  161  ;  Henry's 
Patrick  Henry,  ii.  332;  Tyler's  Patrick  Henry,  288. 


1788  CROWNING   THE   WORK  359 

handicapped  by  the  fact  that  two  of  the  most  powerful 
Antifederalists,  Mason  and  Lee,  were  determined  opponents 
of  a  paper  currency,  so  that  this  subject  had  to  be  dropped 
or  very  gingerly  dealt  with.  The  strength  of  the  Antifed- 
eralists,  though  impaired  by  these  causes,  was  still  very 
great.  The  contest  was  waged  with  all  the  more  intensity 
of  feeling  because,  since  eight  states  had  now  adopted  the 
Constitution,  the  verdict  of  Virginia  would  be  decisive. 
The  convention  met  at  Richmond  on  the  2d  of  June,  and 


Edmund  Pendleton  was  chosen  president.  Foremost  among 
the  Antifederalists  was  Patrick  Henry,  whose  elo-  Debates  in 
quence  was  now  as  zealously  employed  against  the 
new  government  as  it  had  been  in  bygone  days 
against  the  usurpations  of  Great  Britain.  He  was  supported 
by  George  Mason,  as  well  as  by  Benjamin  Harrison  and 
John  Tyler,  the  fathers  of  two  future  presidents,  and  James 
Monroe,  who  was  to  be  president  himself ;  and  he  could 


360  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

count  on  the  votes  of  most  of  the  delegates  from  the  midland 
counties,  from  the  south  bank  of  the  James  River,  and  from 
Kentucky.  But  the  united  talents  of  the  opposition  had  no 
chance  of  success  in  a  conflict  with  the  genius  and  tact  of 
Madison,  who  at  one  moment  crushed,  at  another  conciliated, 
his  opponent,  but  always  won  the  day.  To  Madison,  more 
than  any  other  man,  the  Federalist  victory  was  due.  But 
he  was  ably  seconded  by  Governor  Randolph,  whom  he 
began  by  winning  over  from  the  opposite  party,  and  by 
the  favourite  general  and  eloquent  speaker,  "  Light-Horse 
Harry."  Conspicuous  in  the  ranks  of  Federalists,  and  unsur 
passed  in  debate,  was  a  tall  and  gaunt  young  man,  with 
beaming  countenance,  eyes  of  piercing  brilliancy,  and  an 
indescribable  kingliness  of  bearing,  who  was  by  and  by  to 
become  chief  justice  of  the  United  States,  and  by  his  mas 
terly  and  far-reaching  decisions  to  win  a  place  side  by  side 
with  Madison  and  Hamilton  among  the  founders  of  our 
national  government.  John  Marshall,  second  to  none  among 
all  the  illustrious  jurists  of  the  English  race,  was  then,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-three,  the  foremost  lawyer  in  Virginia.  He 
had  already  served  for  several  terms  in  the  state  legislature, 
Madison  ^ut  n^s  national  career  began  in  this  convention, 
shaiiMre~  wnere  his  arguments  with  those  of  Madison,  rein- 
vail  and  forcing  each  other,  bore  down  all  opposition.  The 

Virginia  ,         .. 

ratines,  details  of  the  controversy  were  much  the  same  as 
in  the  states  already  passed  in  review,  save  in  so 
far  as  coloured  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  Virginia. 
After  more  than  three  weeks  of  debate,  on  the  25th  of  June, 
the  question  was  put  to  vote,  and  the  Constitution  was  rati 
fied  by  the  narrow  majority  of  89  against  79.  Amendments 
were  offered,  after  the  example  of  Massachusetts,  which  had 
already  been  followed  by  South  Carolina  and  the  minority  in 
Maryland  ;  and,  as  in  Massachusetts,  the  defeated  Antifed- 
eralists  announced  their  intention  to  abide  loyally  by  the 
result.1 

1  There  was  much  that  was  sound  and  wise  in  the  Antifederalism 
of  such  men  as  Mason,  Henry,  and  Tyler.     Their  dread  of  creating  a 


i;88  CROWNING   THE   WORK  363 

She  not  only  touched  at  once  on  the  ocean  and  the  lakes, 
but  she  separated  New  England  from  the  rest  of  the  coun 
try.  It  was  rightly  felt  that  the  Union  could  never  be 
cemented  without  this  central  state.  So  strongly  were 
people  impressed  with  this  feeling  that  some  went  so  far  as 
to  threaten  violence.  It  was  said  that  if  New  York  did  not 
come  into  the  Union  peacefully  and  of  her  own  accord,  she 
should  be  conquered  and  dragged  in.  That  she  would  come 


GEORGE    CLINTON 


in  peacefully  seemed  at  first  very  improbable.  When  the 
state  convention  assembled  at  Poughkeepsie,  on  the  i/th  of 
June,  more  than  two  thirds  of  its  members  were  avowed 
Antifederalists.  At  their  head  was  the  governor,  George 
Clinton,  hard-headed  and  resolute,  the  bitterest  hater  of  the 
Constitution  that  could  be  found  anywhere  in  the  thirteen 


364 


THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD 


CHAP.  VII 


states.  Foremost  among  his  supporters  were  Yates  and 
Lansing,  with  Melancton  Smith,  a  man  familiar  with  politi 
cal  history,  and  one  of  the  ablest  debaters  in  the  country. 
On  the  Federalist  side  were  such  eminent  men  as  Living- 


AN    OLD    VIEW    OF    POUGHKEEPSIE 


ston  and  Jay  ;  but  the  herculean  task  of  vanquishing  this 
great  hostile  majority,  and  converting  it  by  sheer  dint  of 
argument  into  a  majority  on  the  right  side,  fell  chiefly  upon 
the  shoulders  of  one  man. 

But  for  Alexander  Hamilton  the  decision  of  New  York 
would  unquestionably  have  been  adverse  to  the  Constitution. 
Nay,  more,  it  is  very  improbable  that,  but  for  him,  the  good 
work  would  have  made  such  progress  as  it  had  in  the  other 
states.  To  get  the  people  to  adopt  the  Constitution,  it  was 
above  all  things  needful  that  its  practical  working  should 
be  expounded,  in  language  such  as  every  one  could  under 
stand,  by  some  writer  endowed  in  a  high  degree  with  polit- 


i788  CROWNING   THE   WORK  365 

ical  intelligence  and  foresight.  Upon  their  return  from 
the  Federal  Convention,  Yates  and  Lansing  had  done  all  in 
their  power  to  bring  its  proceedings  into  ill-repute.  Pam 
phlets  and  broadsides  were  scattered  right  and  left.  The 
Constitution  was  called  the  "triple-headed  monster,"  and 
declared  to  be  "  as  deep  and  wicked  a  conspiracy  as  ever 
was  invented  in  the  darkest  ages  against  the  liberties  of  a 
free  people."  It  soon  occurred  to  Hamilton  that  it  would 
be  well  worth  while  to  explain  the  meaning  of  all  parts  of 
the  Constitution  in  a  series  of  short,  incisive  essays.  He 


ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 


communicated  his  plan  to  Madison  and  Jay,  who  joined  him 
in  the  work,  and  the  result  was  the  "  Federalist,"  perhaps 
the  most  famous  of  American  books,  and  surely  one  of 
the  most  profound  and  suggestive  treatises  on  government 
that  have  ever  been  written.  Of  the  eighty-five  The « Fed- 
numbers  originally  published  in  the  "  Independent 
Gazetteer,"  under  the  common  signature  of  "  Publius,"  Jay 


366  THE  CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

wrote  five,  Madison  twenty-nine,  and  Hamilton  fifty-one.1 
Jay's  papers  related  chiefly  to  diplomatic  points,  with  which 
his  experience  abroad  had  fitted  him  to  deal.  The  first 
number  was  written  by  Hamilton  in  the  cabin  of  a  sloop 
on  the  Hudson,  in  October,  1787  ;  and  they  continued  to 
appear,  sometimes  as  often  as  three  or  four  in  a  week, 
through  the  winter  and  spring.  Madison  would  have  con 
tributed  a  larger  share  than  he  did  had  he  not  been  called 
early  in  March  to  Virginia  to  fight  the  battle  of  the  Consti 
tution  in  that  state.  The  essays  were  widely  and  eagerly 
read,  and  probably  accomplished  more  toward  insuring  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  than  anything  else  that  was 
said  or  done  in  that  eventful  year.  They  were  hastily  writ 
ten,  —  struck  out  at  white  heat  by  men  full  of  their  subject. 
Doubtless  the  authors  did  not  realize  the  grandeur  of  the 
literary  work  they  were  doing,  and  among  the  men  of  the 
time  there  were  few  who  foresaw  the  immortal  fame  which 
these  essays  were  to  earn.  It  is  said  of  one  of  the  senators 
in  the  first  Congress  that  he  made  the  memorandum,  "  Get 
the  '  Federalist,'  if  I  can,  without  buying  it.  It  is  n't  worth 
it."  But  for  all  posterity  the  "  Federalist  "  must  remain  the 
most  authoritative  commentary  upon  the  Constitution  that 
can  be  found  ;  for  it  is  the  joint  work  of  the  principal  author 
of  that  Constitution  and  of  its  most  brilliant  advocate. 

In  nothing  could  the  flexibleness  of  Hamilton's  intellect, 
or  the  genuineness  of  his  patriotism,  have  been  more  finely 
shown  than  in  the  hearty  zeal  and  transcendent  ability  with 
which  he  now  wrote  in  defence  of  a  plan  of  government  so 
different  from  what  he  would  himself  have  proposed.  He 
made  Madison's  thoughts  his  own,  until  he  set  them  forth 
with  force  not  inferior  to  Madison's.  Yet  no  arguments 

1  Attempts  have  been  repeatedly  made  to  claim  for  Hamilton  a 
dozen  or  more  of  the  numbers  written  by  Madison ;  but  there  is  no 
good  ground  for  such  a  claim.  The  arguments  of  Mr.  E.  G.  Bourne, 
in  American  Historical  Review,  i.  443-460,  682-685,  seem  finally  deci 
sive.  See,  also,  the  excellent  note  in  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United 
States,  New  York,  1886,  vi.  452. 


i  ;88 


CROWNING    THE    WORK 


367 


could  possibly  be  less  chargeable  with  partisanship  than  the 
arguments  of  the  "Federalist."  The  judgment  is  as  dis 
passionate  as  could  be  shown  in  a  philosophical  treatise". 
The  tone  is  one  of  grave  and  lofty  eloquence,  apt  to  move 


even  to  tears  the  reader  who  is  fully  alive  to  the  stupen 
dous  issues  that  were  involved  in  the  discussion.  Hamil 
ton  was  supremely  endowed  with  the  faculty  of  imagining, 
with  all  the  circumstantial  minuteness  of  concrete  reality, 
political  situations  different  from  those  directly  before  him  ; 
and  he  put  this  rare  power  to  noble  use  in  tracing  out  the 
natural  and  legitimate  working  of  such  a  Constitution  as 
that  which  the  Federal  Convention  had  framed. 


368  THE   CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

When  it  came  to  defending  the  Constitution  before  the 
hostile  convention  at  Poughkeepsie,  he  had  before  him  as 
arduous  a  task  as  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  parliamentary 
debater.  It  was  a  case  where  political  management  was 
out  of  the  question.  The  opposition  were  too  numerous  to 
be  silenced,  or  cajoled,  or  bargained  with.  They  must  be 
converted.  With  an  eloquence  scarcely  equalled  before  or 
since  in  America  until  Webster's  voice  was  heard,  Hamilton 
argued  week  after  week,  till  at  last  Melancton  Smith,  the 
foremost  debater  of  Clinton's  party,  broke  away,  and  came 
over  to  the  Federalist  side.  It  was  like  crushing  the  centre 
of  a  hostile  army.  After  this  the  Antifederalist  forces  were 
confused  and  easily  routed.  The  decisive  struggle  was  over 
the  question  whether  New  York  could  ratify  the  Constitu 
tion  conditionally,  reserving  to  herself  the  right  to  withdraw 
from  the  Union  in  case  the  amendments  upon  which  she 
had  set  her  heart  should  not  be  adopted.  Upon  this  point 
Hamilton  reinforced  himself  with  the  advice^  of  Madison, 
who  had  just  returned  to  New  York.  Could  a  state  once 
adopt  the  Constitution,  and  then  withdraw  from  the  Union 
if  not  satisfied  ?  Madison's  reply  was  prompt  and  decisive. 
No,  such  a  thing  could  never  be  done.  A  state  which  had 
once  ratified  was  in  the  federal  bond  forever.  The 
wfoTthe11  Constitution  could  not  provide  for  nor  contem- 
Ind°Ne'w  plate  its  own  overthrow.  There  could  be  no  such 
York  rati-  thing  as  a  constitutional  right  of  secession.  When 
Melancton  Smith  deserted  the  Antifederalists  on 
this  point,  the  victory  was  won,  and  on  the  26th  of  July 
New  York  ratified  the  Constitution  by  the  bare  majority  of 
30  votes  against  27.  Rejoicings  were  now  renewed  through 
out  the  country.  In  the  city  of  New  York  there  was  an 
immense  parade,  and  as  the  emblematic  federal  ship  —  the 
Ship  of  State  —  was  drawn  through  the  streets,  with  Ham 
ilton's  name  emblazoned  on  the  vehicle  that  supported  her, 
it  was  doubtless  the  proudest  moment  of  the  young  states 
man's  life. 

New  York,  however,  clogged  her  acceptance  by  propos- 


I788  CROWNING   THE    WORK  369 

ing,  a  few  days  afterward,  that  a  second  Federal  Convention 
be  called  for  considering  the  amendments  suggested  by  the 
various  states.  The  proposal  was  supported  by  the  Virginia 
legislature,  but  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania  opposed  it, 


PARADE    IN    NEW   YORK    IX    HONOUR    OF    THE    ADOPTION    OF    THE    CONSTI 
TUTION,    1788 

as  having  a  dangerous  tendency  to  reopen  the  whole  dis 
cussion  and  unsettle  everything.  The  proposal  fell  to  the 
ground.  People  were  weary  of  the  long  dispute,  and  turned 
their  attention  to  electing  representatives  to  the  first  Con 
gress.  With  the  adhesion  of  New  York  all  serious  anxiety 
came  to  an  end.  The  new  government  could  be  put  in 
operation  without  waiting  for  North  Carolina  and  Rhode 
Island  to  make  up  their  minds.  The  North  Caro- 

,  ,        ,       The  lag- 

lina  convention  met  on  the  2ist  or  July,  and  ad-  gard  states. 
journed  on  the  ist  of  August  without  coming  to  Carolina 


any  decision.     The   same    objections   were    raised 

as  in  Virginia  ;  and  besides,  the  paper-money  party 

was  here  much  stronger  than  in  the  neighbouring  state.     In 

Rhode   Island  paper  money  was  the  chief  difficulty  ;  that 

state  did  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  call  a  convention.     It 


370  THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD  CHAP,  vn 

was  not  until  the  2ist  of  November,  1789,  after  Washing 
ton's  government  had  been  several  months  in  operation,  that 
North  Carolina  joined  the.  Federal  Union.  Rhode  Island 
did  not  join  till  the  2Qth  of  May,  1790.  If  she  had  waited 
but  a  few  months  longer,,  Vermont,  the  first  state  not  of  the 
original  thirteen,  would  have  come  in  before  her. 

"The  autumn  of  1788  was  a  season  of  busy  but  peaceful 
electioneering.  That  remarkable  body,  the  Continental 
Congress,  in  putting  an  end  to  its  troubled  existence,  de 
creed  that  presidential  electors  should  be  chosen  on  the 
first  Wednesday  of  January,  1789,  that  the  electors  should 
meet  and  cast  their  votes  for  president  on  the  first  Wednes 
day  in  February,  and  that  the  Senate  and  House  of  Re 
presentatives  should  assemble  on  the  first  Wednesday  in 
March.  This  latter  day  fell,  in  1789,  on  the  4th  of  the 
month,  and  accordingly,  three  years  afterward,  Congress 
took  it  for  a  precedent,  and  decreed  that  thereafter  each 
new  administration  should  begin  on  the  4th  of  March.  It 
was  further  decided,  after  some  warm  debate,  that  until  the 
site  for  the  proposed  federal  city  could  be  selected  and 
built  upon,  the  seat  of  the  new  government  should  be  the 
city  of  New  York. 

In  accordance  with  these  decrees,  presidential  elections 
were  held  on  the  first  Wednesday  in  January.  The  Anti- 
First  presi-  federalists  were  still  potent  for  mischief  in  New 
eiTction,  York,  with  the  result  that,  just  as  that  state  had 
Jan.  7,1789  not  joined  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
until  after  it  had  been  proclaimed  to  the  world,  and  just  as 
she  refused  to  adopt  the  Federal  Constitution  until  after 
more  than  the  requisite  number  of  states  had  ratified  it,  so 
now  she  failed  to  choose  electors,  and  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  vote  that  made  Washington  our  first  president. 
The  other  ten  states  that  had  ratified  the  Constitution  all 
chose  electors.  But  things  moved  slowly  and  cumbrously 
at  this  first  assembling  of  the  new  government.  The  House 
of  Representatives  did  not  succeed  in  getting  a  quorum 
together  until  the  ist  of  April.  On  the  6th,  the  Senate 


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1789  CROWNING   THE   WORK  371 

chose  John  Langdon  for  its  president,  and  the  two  houses 
in  concert  counted  the  electoral  votes.  There  were  69  in 
all,  and  every  one  of  the  69  was  found  to  be  for  George 
Washington  of  Virginia.  For  the  second  name  on  the  list 
there  was  nothing  like  such  unanimity.  It  was  to  be  ex 
pected  that  the  other  name  would  be  that  of  a  citizen  of 
Massachusetts,  as  the  other  leading  state  in  the  Union. 
The  two  foremost  citizens  of  Massachusetts  bore  the  same 
name,  and  were  cousins.  There  would  have  been  most 
striking  poetic  justice  in  coupling  with  the  name  of  Wash 
ington  that  of  Samuel  Adams,  since  these  two  men  had 
been  indisputably  foremost  in  the  work  of  achieving  the 
independence  of  the  United  States.  But  for  the  hesitancy 
of  Samuel  Adams  in  indorsing  the  Federal  Constitution,  he 
would  very  likely  have  been  our  first  vice-president  and  our 
second  president.  But  the  wave  of  federalism  had  now 
begun  to  sweep  strongly  over  Massachusetts,  carrying 
everything  before  it,  and  none  but  the  most  ardent  Feder 
alists  had  a  chance  to  meet  in  the  electoral  college.  Voices 
were  raised  in  behalf  of  Samuel  Adams.  While  we  honour 
the  American  Fabius,  it  was  said,  let  us  not  forget  the 
American  Cato.  It  was  urged  by  some,  with  much  truth, 
that  but  for  his  wise  and  cautious  action  in  the  Massachu 
setts  convention,  the  good  ship  Constitution  would  have 
been  fatally  wrecked  upon  the  reefs  of  Shaysism.  His 
course  had  not  been  that  of  an  obstructionist,  like  that  of  his 
old  friends  Henry  and  Lee  and  Gerry;  but  at  the  critical 
moment  —  one  of  the  most  critical  in  all  that  wonderful 
crisis  —  he  had  thrown  his  vast  influence,  with  decisive 
effect,  upon  the  right  side.  All  this  is  plain  enough  to  the 
historian  of  to-day.  But  in  the  political  fervour  of  the  elec 
tion  of  1789,  the  fact  most  clearly  visible  to  men  was  that 
Samuel  Adams'  had  hesitated,  and  perhaps  made  things 
wait.  These  points  came  out  most  distinctly  on  the  issue 
of  his  election  to  the  Federal  Congress,  in  which  he  was 
defeated  by  the  youthful  Fisher  Ames,  whose  eloquence  in 
the  state  convention  had  been  so  conspicuous  and  useful  ; 


372 


THE    CRITICAL    PERIOD 


CHAP.  VII 


WASHINGTON'S  TRIUMPHAL  JOURNEY  TO  NEW  YORK 

but  they  serve  to  explain  thoroughly  why  he  was  not  put 
upon  the  presidential  list  along  with  Washington.  His 
cousin,  John  Adams,  had  just  returned  from  his  mission  to 
England,  weary  and  disgusted  with  the  scanty  respect  which 
he  had  been  able  to  secure  for  a  feeble  league  of  states  that 
could  not  make  good  its  own  promises.  His  services  during 
the  Revolution  had  been  of  the  most  splendid  sort :  and 
after  Washington,  he  was  the  second  choice  of  the  electoral 
college,  receiving  34  votes,  while  John  Jay  of  New  York, 
his  nearest  competitor,  received  only  9.  John  Adams  was 
accordingly  declared  vice-president. 


1789  CROWNING    THE   WORK  373 

On  the  1 4th  of  April  Washington  was  informed  of  his 
election,  and  on  the  next  day  but  one  he  bid  adieu  again  to 
his  beloved  home  at  Mount  Vernon,  where  he  had  hoped 
to  pass  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  that  rural  peace  and 
quiet  for  which  no  one  yearns  like  the  man  who  is  bur 
dened  with  greatness  and  fame  unsought  for.  The  position 
to  which  he  was  summoned  was  one  of  unparalleled  splen 
dour,  —  how  splendid  we  can  now  realize  much  better  than 
he,  and  our  grandchildren  will  realize  it  better  than  we,  — 
the  position  of  first  ruler  of  what  was  soon  to  become  at 
once  the  strongest  and  the  most  peace-loving  people  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth.  As  he  journeyed  toward  New  York, 
his  thoughts  must  have  been  busy  with  the  arduous  pro 
blems  of  the  time.  Already,  doubtless,  he  had  marked  out 
the  two  great  men,  Jefferson  and  Hamilton,  for  his  chief 
advisers  :  the  one  to  place  us  in  a  proper  attitude  before 
the  mocking  nations  of  Europe  ;  the  other  to  restore  our 
shattered  credit,  and  enlist  the  moneyed  interests  of  all  the 
states  in  the  success  of  the  Federal  Union.  Washington's 
temperament  was  a  hopeful  one,  as  befitted  a  man  of  his 
strength  and  dash.  But  in  his  most  hopeful  mood  he  could 
hardly  have  dared  to  count  upon  such-  a  sudden  demon 
stration  of  national  strength  as  was  about  to  ensue  upon 
the  heroic  financial  measures  of  Hamilton.  His  medita 
tions  on  this  journey  we  may  well  believe  to  have  been 
solemn  and  anxious  enough.  But  if  he  could  gather  added 
courage  from  the  often-declared  trust  of  his  fellow-country 
men,  there  was  no  lack  of  such  comfort  for  him.  At  every 
town  through  which  he  passed,  fresh  evidences  of  it  were 
gathered,  but  at  one  point  on  the  route  his  strong  nature 
was  especially  wrought  upon.  At  Trenton,  as  he  crossed 
the  bridge  over  the  Assunpink  Creek,  where  twelve  years 
ago,  at  the  darkest  moment  of  the  Revolution,  he  had  out 
witted  Cornwallis  in  the  most  skilful  of  stratagems,  and 
turned  threatening  defeat  into  glorious  victory,  —  at  this 
spot,  so  fraught  with  thrilling  associations,  he  was  met  by  a 
party  of  maidens  dressed  in  white,  who  strewed  his  path 


374 


THE    CRITICAL   PERIOD 


CHAP.  VII 


with  sweet  spring  flowers,  while  triumphal  arches  in  softest 
green  bore  inscriptions  declaring  that  he  who  had  watched 
over  the  safety  of  the  mothers  could  well  be  trusted  to  pro 
tect  the  daughters.  On  the  23d  he  arrived  in  New  York,  and 
was  entertained  at  dinner  by  Governor  Clinton.  One  week 
later,  on  the  3<Dth,  came  the  inauguration.  It  was  one  of 
inaugura-  tnose  magnificent  days  of  clearest  sunshine  that 
wLhing-  sometimes  make  one  feel  in  April  as  if  summer 
ton,  April  had  come.  At  noon  of  that  day  Washington  went 
from  his  lodgings,  attended  by  a  military  escort,  to 
Federal  Hall,  at  the  corner  of  Wall  and  Nassau  streets, 


INAUGURATION    OF    WASHINGTON 


where  his  statue  has  lately  been  erected.  The  city  was 
ablaze  with  excitement.  A  sea  of  upturned  eager  faces  sur 
rounded  the  spot,  and  as  the  hero  appeared  thousands  of 
cocked  hats  were  waved,  while  ladies  fluttered  their  white 
handkerchiefs.  Washington  came  forth  clad  in  a  suit  of 
dark  brown  cloth  of  American  make,  with  white  silk  hose 
and  shoes  decorated  with  silver  buckles,  while  at  his  side 
hung  a  dress-sword.  For  a  moment  all  were  hushed  in 
deepest  silence,  while  the  secretary  of  the  Senate  held  forth 


I789  CROWNING   THE   WORK  375 

the  Bible  upon  a  velvet  cushion,  and  Chancellor  Livingston 
administered  the  oath  of  office.  Then,  before  Washington 
had  as  yet  raised  his  head,  Livingston  shouted,  —  and  from 
all  the  vast  company  came  answering  shouts,  —  "  Long  live 
George  Washington,  President  of  the  United  States  !  " 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 


THE  bibliography  of  the  period  covered  in  this  book  is  very  copi 
ously  and  thoroughly  treated  in  the  seventh  volume  of  Winsor's  Narra 
tive  and  Critical  History  of  North  America,  Boston,  1888.  For  the 
benefit  of  the  reader  who  may  not  have  ready  access  to  that  vast  store 
house  of  information,  the  following  brief  notes  may  be  of  service. 

The  best  account  of  the  peace  negotiations  is  to  be  found  in  chapter 
ii.  of  Winsor's  volume  just  cited,  written  by  Hon.  John  Jay,  who  had 
already  discussed  the  subject  quite  thoroughly  in  his  Address  before  the 
New  York  Historical  Society  on  its  Seventy-Ninth  Anniversary,  Nov. 
27,  1883.  Of  the  highest  value  are  Lord  Edmond  Fitzmaurice's  Life 
of  Lord  Shelburne,  3  vols.,  London,  1875-76,  and  Adolphe  de  Circourt, 
Histoire  de  r action  commune  de  la  France  et  de  VAmeriqne,  etc.,  tome 
iii.,  Documents  originaux  inedits,  Paris,  1876.  See  also  Sparks,  Diplo 
matic  Correspondence  of  the  American  Revolution,  12  vols.,  Boston, 
1829-30;  Trescot's  Diplomacy  of  the  American  Revolution,  N.  Y., 
1852;  Ly man's  Diplomacy  of  the  United  States,  Boston,  1826;  Elliot's 
American  Diplomatic  Code,  2  vols.,  Washington,  1834;  Chalmer's  Col 
lection  of  Treaties,  2  vols.,  London,  1790;  Lord  Stanhope's  History  of 
England,  vol.  vii.,  London,  1853  ;  Lecky's  History  of  England,  vol.  iv., 
London,  1882;  Lord  John  Russell's  Memorials  of  Fox,  4  vols.,  London, 
1853-57;  Albemarle's  Rockingham  and  his  Contemporaries,  2  vols., 
London,  1852  ;  Walpole's  Last  Journals,  2  vols.,  London,  1859;  Force's 
American  Archives,  4th  series,  6  vols.,  Washington,  1839-46;  John 
Adams's  Works,  10  vols.,  Boston,  1850-56;  Rives's  Life  of  Madison,  3 
vols.,  Boston,  1859-68  ;  Madison's  Letters  and  other  Writings,  4  vols., 
Phila.,  1865;  the  lives  of  Franklin,  by  Bigelow  and  Parton  ;  the  lives 
of  Jay,  by  Jay,  Flanders,  and  Whitelocke ;  Morse's  John  Adams,  Bos 
ton,  1885;  Correspondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North,  2  vols., 
London,  1867;  Wharton's  Digest  of  International  Laiv,  Washington, 

1887,  Appendix  to  vol.  iii. ;  Kale's  Franklin  in  France,  2  vols.,  Boston, 

1888.  The  view  of  the  treaty  set  forth  in  1830  by  Sparks,  according  to 
which  Jay  and  Adams  were  quite  mistaken  in  their  suspicions  of  the 
French  court,  we  may  now  regard  as  disposed  of  by  the  evidence  pre 
sented  by  Circourt  and  Fitzmaurice.     It  has  led  many  writers  astray, 
and  even  with  all  the  lights  which  Mr.  Bancroft  has  had,  the  account  in 


378  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 

the  last  revision  of  his  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  v.,  N.  Y.,  1886, 
though  in  some  respects  one  of  the  best  to  be  found  in  the  general  his 
tories,  still  leaves  much  to  be  desired. 

The  general  condition  of  the  United  States  under  the  articles  of 
confederation  is  well  sketched  in  the  sixth  volume  of  Bancroft's  final 
revision,  and  in  Curtis's  History  of  the  Constitution,  2  vols.,  N.  Y., 
1861.  An  excellent  summary  is  given  in  the  first  volume  of  Schouler's 
History  of  the  United  States  under  the  Constitution,  of  which  vols.  i.-v. 
(revised  ed.,  N.  Y.,  1894)  have  appeared.  Mr.  Schouler's  book  is  sug 
gestive  and  stimulating.  The  work  most  rich  in  details  is  Professor 
Me  Master's  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States,  of  which  the 
first  volume  rather  more  than  covers  the  period  1783-89.  The  author 
is  especially  deserving  of  praise  for  the  diligence  with  which  he  has 
searched  the  newspapers  and  obscure  pamphlets  of  the  period.  He 
has  thus  given  much  fresh  life  to  the  narrative,  besides  throwing  valu 
able  light  upon  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  men  who  lived  under 
the  "league  of  friendship."  I  take  pleasure  in  acknowledging  my 
indebtedness  to  Professor  McMaster  for  several  interesting  illustrative 
details.  Further  general  information  as  to  the  period  of  the  Confed 
eration  may  be  found  in  Morse's  admirable  Life  of  Alexander  Hamil 
ton,  3d  ed.,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1882;  Sumner's  Alexander  Hamilton, 
N.  Y.,  1890;  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Republic  of  the  United  States,  7  vols., 
Boston,  1879  »  Frothingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic,  Boston,  1872,  chap 
ter  xii. ;  Von  Hoist's  Constitutional  History,  8  vols.,  Chicago,  1877-92, 
chapter  i. ;  Pitkin's  History  of  the  United  States,  2  vols.,  New  Haven, 
1828,  vol.  ii.;  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  5  vols.,  Phila.,  1805-07; 
Journals  of  Congress,  13  vols.,  Phila.,  1800;  Secret  Journals  of  Con 
gress,  4  vols.,  Boston,  1820-21. 

On  the  loyalists  and  their  treatment,  the  able  essay  by  Rev.  G.  E. 
Ellis,  in  Winsor's  seventh  volume,  is  especially  rich  in  bibliographical 
references.  See  also  Sabine's  Loyalists  of  the  American  Revolution, 
2  vols.,  Boston,  1864;  Ryerson's  Loyalists  of  America,  2  vols.,  Toronto, 
1880;  Jones's  New  York  during  the  Revolution,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1879. 
Although  chiefly  concerned  with  events  earlier  than  1780,  the  Journal 
and  Letters  of  Samuel  Guriven,  4th  ed.,  Boston,  1864,  and  especially 
the  Diary  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Hutchinson,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1884-86, 
are  valuable  in  this  connection. 

For  the  financial  troubles  the  most  convenient  general  survey  is  to 
be  found  in  A.  S.  Bolles's  Financial  History  of  the  United  States, 
I774~i789,  N.  Y.,  1879;  Sumner's  The  Financier  and  the  Finances  of 
the  American  Revolution,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1891  ;  Sparks's  Life  of  Gou- 
verneur  Morris,  3  vols.,  Boston,  1832;  Pelatiah  Webster's  Political 
Essays,  Phila.,  1791  ;  Phillips's  Colonial  and  Continental  Paper  Cur. 
rency,  2  vols.,  Roxbury,  1865-66;  Varnum's  Case  of  Trevett  v.  Weeden, 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE  379 

Providence,  1787;  Arnold's  History  of  Rhode  Island,  2  vols.,  4th  ed., 
Providence,  1894.  The  best  account  of  the  Shays  rebellion  is  G.  R. 
Minot's  History  of  the  Insurrections  in  Massachusetts ;  Worcester,  1 788 ; 
see  also  Barry's  History  of  Massachusetts,  3  vols.,  Boston,  1855-57; 
Austin's  Life  of  Gerry,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1828-29.  A  new  and  interest 
ing  account  of  the  northwestern  cessions  and  the  Ordinance  of  1787  is 
B.  A.  Hinsdale's  Old  Northwest,  N.  Y.,  1888 ;  see  also  Dunn's  Indiana, 
Boston,  1888  ;  Cutler's  Life,  Journal,  and  Correspondence  of  Manasseh 
Cutler,  2  vols.,  Cincinnati,  1887;  Poole's  The  Ordinance  0/1787,  Cam 
bridge,  1876. 

In  \htjohns  Hopkins  University  Studies  in  Historical  and  Political 
Science,  the  following  articles  bear  especially  upon  subjects  here  treated 
and  are  worthy  of  careful  study:  II.,  v.,  vi.,  H.  C.  Adams,  Taxation  in 
the  United  States,  1789-1816;  III.,  i.,  H.  B.  Adams,  Maryland's 
Influence  upon  Land  Cessions  to  the  United  States ;  III.,  ix.,  x.,  Davis, 
American  Constitutions;  IV.,  v.,  Jameson's  Introduction  to  the  Consti 
tutional  and  Political  History  of  the  Individual  States  ;  IV.,  vii.-ix., 
Shoshuke  Sato's  History  of  the  Land  Question  in  the  United  States; 
VIII.,  i.,  ii.,  A.  W.  Small,  The  Beginnings  of  American  Nationality ; 
IX.,  i.  ii.,  Willoughby's  Government  and  Administration  of  the  United 
States. 

For  the  proceedings  of  the  Federal  Convention  in  framing  the  Con 
stitution,  and  of  the  several  state  conventions  in  ratifying  it,  the  great 
treasure-house  of  authoritative  information  is  Elliot's  Debates  in  the 
Conventions,  5  vols.,  originally  published  under  the  sanction  of  Con 
gress  in  1830-45;  new  reprint,  Phila.,  1888.  The  contents  of  the 
volumes  are  as  follows  :  — 

I.  Sundry  preliminary  papers,  relating  to  the  ante-revolutionary 
period,  and  the  period  of  the  Confederation;  journal  of  the 
Federal  Convention  ;  'Viates's  minutes  of  the  proceedings  ;  the 
official  letters  of  Martin,  Yates,  Lansing,  Randolph,  Mason,  and 
Gerry,  in  explanation  of  their  several  courses  ;  Jay's  address  to 
the  people  of  New  York  ;  and  other  illustrative  papers. 
II.,  III.,  IV.  Proceedings  of  the  several  state  conventions  ;  with 
other  documents,  including  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions 
of  1798,  and  data  relating  thereto. 

V.  Madison's  journal  of  debates  in  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation, 
Nov.  4,  1782-June  21,  1783,  and  Feb.  i9~April  25,  1787;  Madi 
son's  journal  of  the  Federal  Convention ;  letters  from  Madison  to 
Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Randolph,  Sept.  178 7-Nov.  1788; 
and  other  papers. 

The  best  edition  of  the  "  Federalist  "  is  by  H.  C.  Lodge,  N.  Y.,  1888. 
See  also  Story's  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution,  4th  ed.,  3  vols., 
Boston,  1873;  tne  works  of  Daniel  Webster,  6  vols.,  Boston,  1851; 


380  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

Kurd's  TJieory  of  our  National  Existence,  Boston,  1881.  The  above 
works  expound  the  Constitution  as  not  a  league  between  sovereign 
states  but  a  fundamental  law  ordained  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  The  opposite  view  is  presented  in  The  Republic  of  Repub 
lics,  by  P.  C.  Centz  [Plain  Common  Sense,  pseudonym  of  B.  J.  Sage  of 
New  Orleans],  Boston,  1881  ;  the  works  of  Calhoun,  6  vols.,  N.  Y., 
1853-55;  A.  H.  Stephens's  War  between  the  States,  2  vols.,  Phila., 
1 868  ;  Jefferson  Davis's  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Government, 
2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1 88 1.  Bledsoe,  Is  Davis  a  Traitor  ;  or  was  Secession  a 
Constitutional  Right  previous  to  the  War  of  1861  ?  Baltimore,  1866. 

Several  volumes  of  the  "  American  Statesmen  "  contain  interesting 
accounts  of  discussions  in  the  various  conventions,  as  Tyler's  Patrick 
Henry,  Hosmer's  Samuel  Adams,  Lodge's  Hamilton,  Magruders 
Marshall,  Roosevelt's  Morris.  Gay's  Madison  falls  far  below  the 
general  standard  of  this  excellent  and  popular  series.  No  satisfactory 
biography  of  Madison  has  yet  been  written,  though  the  voluminous 
work  of  W.  C.  Rives  contains  much  good  material.  For  judicial  inter 
pretations  of  the  Constitution  one  may  consult  B.  R.  Curtis's  Digest  of 
Decisions,  1790-1854;  Flanders's  Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices,  Phila., 
1858 ;  Marshall's  Writings  on  the  Federal  Constitution,  ed.  Perkins, 
Boston,  1839;  see  also  Pomeroy's  Constitutional  Law,  N.  Y.,  1868; 
Wharton's  Commentaries,  Phila.,  1884;  Von  Hoist's  Calhoun,  Boston, 
1882.  Among  critical  and  theoretical  works,  Fisher's  Trial  of  the  Con 
stitution,  Phila.,  1862,  and  Lockwood's  Abolition  of  the  Presidency,  N. 
Y.,  1884,  are  variously  suggestive ;  Woodrow  Wilson's  Congressional 
Government,  Boston,  1885,  is  a  work  of  rare  ability,  pointing  out  the 
divergence  which  has  arisen  between  the  literary  theory  of  our  govern 
ment  and  its  practical  working.  Walter  Bagehot's  English  Constitu 
tion,  revised  ed.,  Boston,  1873,  had  already,  in  a  profound  and  masterly 
fashion,  exhibited  the  divergence  between  the  literary  theory  and  the 
actual  working  of  the  British  government.  Some  points  of  weakness 
in  the  British  system  are  touched  in  Albert  Stickney's  True  Republic, 
N.  Y.,  1879;  and  his  Democratic  Government,  N.  Y.,  1885  ;  see  also  A. 
L.  Lowell's  Essays  on  Government,  Boston,  1890.  The  constitutional 
history  of  England  is  presented,  in  its  earlier  stages,  with  prodigious 
learning,  by  Dr.  Stubbs,  3  vols.,  London,  1873-78,  and  in  its  later  stages 
by  Hallam,  2  vols.,  London,  1842,  and  Sir  Erskine  May,  2  vols.,  Boston, 
1862-63;  see  also  S.  R.  Gardiner's  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Eng 
lish  History,  London,  1881 ;  Freeman's  Growth  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution,  London,  1872  ;  Comparative  Politics,  London,  1873 ;  Some 
Impressions  of  the  United  States,  London,  1883 ;  Rudolph  Gneist, 
History  of  the  English  Constittition,  2  vols.,  London,  1886;  J.  S.  Mill, 
Representative  Government,  N.  Y.,  1862  ;  Sir  H.  Maine,  Popular  Gov 
ernment,  N.  Y.,  1886;  Tocqueville's  Democracy  in  America,  2  vols., 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE  381 

Cambridge,  1863  5  Bryce's  American  Commonwealth,  2  vols.,  N.  Y., 
1888  ;  Lecky's  Democracy  and  Liberty,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1876. 

See  also  Stevens's  Sources  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
N.  Y.,  1894;  Fisher's  Evolution  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  Phila.,  1897  ;  Jameson,  Essays  in  the  Constitutional  History  of 
the  United  States,  Boston,  1889 ;  Cooley  (and  others),  Constitutional 
History  of  the  United  States  as  seen  in  the  Development  of  A  7nerican 
Law,  N.  Y.,  1889;  Curry,  The  Southern  States  of  the  American  Union, 
N.  Y.,  1894;  Stanwood's  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  Boston, 
1888;  Miss  Follett,  The  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  N. 
Y.,  1896;  Harding,  The  Contest  over  the  Ratification  of  the  Federal 
Constitution  in  Massachusetts,  N.  Y.,  1896;  Houston's  Critical  Study 
of  Nullification  in  South  Carolina,  N.  Y.,  1896. 

Much  detailed  information  may  be  found  in  Henry's  Life,  Corre 
spondence,  and  Speeches  of  Patrick  Henry,  3  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1891  ;  Lee's 
Life  of  Richard  Henry  Lee,  2  vols.,  Phila.,  1825  ;  Madison's  Papers, 
etc.,  ed.  Gilpin,  3  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1841  ;  Tyler's  Letters  and  Times  of  the 
Tylers,  vols.  i.,  ii.,  Richmond,  1884-85,  vol.  iii.,  Williamsburg,  1897; 
Conway's  Edmund  Randolph,  N.  Y.,  1888;  Conway's  Life  of  Thomas 
Paine,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1892;  Grigsby's  History  of  the  Virginia  Federal 
Convention  (Va.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  N.  S.,  ix.,  x.);  Miss  Rowland's  Life, 
Correspondence,  and  Speeches  of  George  Mason,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1892; 
Miss  Rowland's  Life  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  2  vols.,  N.  Y., 
1897:  McRee's  Life  of  James  Iredell,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.  1857;  Stille's  Life 
and  Times  of  John  Dickinson,  Phila.,  1891;  McMaster  and  Stone, 
Pennsylvania  and  the  Federal  Constitution,  Phila.,  1888;  Miss  Boudi- 
not's  Life  of  E lias  Boudinot,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1896;  Miss  Morris's 
Diary  and  Letters  of  Gouverneur  Morris,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1888;  King's 
Life  and  Correspondence  of  Rufus  King,  vols.  i.-iv.  issued,  N.  Y., 
1894-97,  two  more  to  come  ;  Jay's  Correspondence  and  Public  Papers, 
4  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1890-93  ;  Wells's  Life  of  Samuel  Adams,  3  vols..  Bos 
ton,  1865;  Austin's  Life  of  Gerry,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1828-29;  Parsons's 
Memoir  of  Theophilus  Parsons,  Boston,  1859;  Belknap's  Minutes  of 
the  Convention  of  1788  (Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc.,  1858);  Federal  Con 
vention  of  Massachusetts.  Debates.  Resolutions,  etc.,  Boston,  1 788 ; 
Debates  and  Proceedings  in  the  Convention  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts  held  in  the  year  1788,  Boston,  1856;  Staples,  Rhode 
Island  in  the  Continental  Congress,  Providence,  1870;  Walker,  New 
Hampshire  Federal  Convention,  Boston,  1888;  Ford,  Pamphlets  on 
the  Constitution,  Brooklyn,  1892. 

A  monograph  of  profound  interest  and  indispensable  to  a  correct 
understanding  of  the  subject  is  Libby,  The  Geographical  Distribution 
of  the  Vote  of  the  Thirteen  States  on  the  Federal  Constitution,  Madi 
son,  Wis.,  1894. 


382  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

I  may  also  mention  my  own  books,  American  Political  Ideas,  N.  Y., 
1885;  Civil  Government  in  the  United  States,  Boston,  1890  ;  and  my 
articles,  "  Great  Britain,"  "  House  of  Lords,"  and  "  House  of  Com 
mons,"  in  Lalor's  Cyclopaedia  of  Political  Science,  3  vols.,  Chicago, 
1882-84.  That  cyclopaedia  contains  also  numerous  articles  on  Ameri 
can  history  by  the  late  Prof.  Alexander  Johnston.  One  must  stop 
somewhere,  and  I  will  conclude  by  saying  that  I  do  not  know  where 
one  can  find  anything  more  richly  suggestive  than  those  articles  of 
Professor  Johnston,  in  whose  premature  death  our  country  has  sus 
tained  an  irreparable  loss. 


MEMBERS   OF   THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION 

THE  names  of  those  who  for  various  reasons  were  absent  when  the 
Constitution  was  signed  are  given  in  italics  ;  the  names  of  those  who 
were  present,  but  refused  to  sign,  are  given  in  small  capitals. 

New  Hampshire John  Langdon. 

Nicholas  Oilman. 
Massachusetts ELBRIDGE  GERRY. 

Nathaniel  Gorham. 

Rufus  King. 

Caleb  Strong. 
Connecticut      ........  William  Samuel  Johnson. 

Roger  Sherman. 

Oliver  Ellsworth. 
New  York .  Robert  Yates. 

Alexander  Hamilton. 

John  Lansing. 
New  Jersey  .  .     .  William  Livingston. 

David  Brearley. 

William  Churchill  Houston. 

William  Paterson. 

Jonathan  Dayton. 
Pennsylvania    .....          .  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Thomas  Mifflin. 

Robert  Morris. 

George  Clymer. 

Thomas  Fitzsimmons. 

Jared  Ingersoll. 

James  Wilson. 

Gouverneur  Morris. 
Delaware George  Read. 

Gunning  Bedford. 

John  Dickinson. 

Richard  Bassett. 

Jacob  Broom. 
Maryland James  McHenry. 

Daniel  of  St.  Thomas  Jenifer. 

Daniel  Carroll. 


384       MEMBERS    OF    THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION 

Jo  Jin  Francis  Mercer. 

Luther  Martin. 
Virginia  .     «,......  George  Washington. 

EDMUND  RANDOLPH. 

John  Blair. 

James  Madison. 

GEORGE  MASON. 

George  IVythe. 

James  McClurg. 
North  Carolina Alexander  Martin. 

William  Richardson  Dai'ie. 

William  Blount. 

Richard  Dobbs  Spaight. 

Hugh  Williamson. 
South  Carolina John  Rutledge. 

Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney. 

Charles  Pinckney. 

Pierce  Butler. 
Georgia William  Few. 

Abraham  Baldwin. 

William  Pierce. 

William  Houston. 

Of  those  who  signed  their  names  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  six 
following  were  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  :  — 

Roger  Sherman, 
Benjamin  Franklin, 
Robert  Morris, 
George  Clymer, 
James  Wilson, 
George  Read. 

And  the  five  following  were  signers  of  the  Articles  of  Confedera 
tion  :  — 

Roger  Sherman. 

Robert  Morris. 
Gouverneur  Morris, 
John  Dickinson, 
Daniel  Carroll. 

The  ten  following  were  appointed  as  delegates  to  the  Federal  Conven 
tion,  but  never  took  their  seats :  — 

New  Hampshire        John  Pickering. 

Benjamin  West. 
Massachusetts  .  Francis  Dana. 


MEMBERS    OF    THE    FEDERAL    CONVENTION       385 

New  Jersey John  Nelson. 

Abraham  Clark. 

Virginia Patrick  Henry  (declined). 

North  Carolina Richard  Caswell  (resigned). 

Willie  Jones  (declined). 
Georgia George  Walton. 

Nathaniel  Pendleton. 

No  delegates  were  appointed  by  Rhode  Island.  In  a  letter  addressed 
to  "  the  Honourable  the  Chairman  of  the  General  Convention,"  and 
dated"  Providence,  May  it,  1787,"  several  leading  citizens  of  Rhode 
Island  expressed  their  regret  that  their  state  should  not  be  represented 
on  so  momentous  an  occasion.  At  the  same  time,  says  the  letter,  "  the 
result  of  your  deliberations  ...  we  still  hope  may  finally  be  approved 
and  adopted  by  this  state,  for  which  we  pledge  our  influence  and  best 
exertions."  The  letter  was  signed  by  John  Brown,  Joseph  Nightingale, 
Levi  Hall,  Philip  Allen,  Paul  Allen,  Jabez  Bowen,  Nicholas  Brown, 
John  Jinkes,  Welcome  Arnold,  William  Russell,  Jeremiah  Olney, 
William  Barton,  and  Thomas  Lloyd  Halsey.  The  letter  was  presented 
to  the  Convention  on  May  28th  by  Gouverneur  Morris*  and,  "  being 
read,  was  ordered  to  lie  on  the  table  for  further  consideration."  See 
Elliot's  Debates,  v.  125. 

The  Constitution  was  ratified  by  the  thirteen  states,  as  follows :  — 

1.  Delaware Dec.  6,  1787. 

2.  Pennsylvania Dec.  12,  1787. 

3.  New  Jersey Dec.  18,  1787. 

4.  Georgia Jan.  2,  1788. 

5.  Connecticut Jan.  9,  1788. 

6.  Massachusetts Feb.  6,  1788. 

7.  Maryland April  28,  1788. 

8.  South  Carolina May  23,  1788. 

9.  New  Hampshire June  21,  1788. 

10.  Virginia        June  25,  1788. 

11.  New  York July  26,  1788. 

12.  North  Carolina Nov.  21,  1789. 

13.  Rhode  Island May  29,  1790. 


386     PRESIDENTS  OF  THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS 


PRESIDENTS    OF   THE    CONTINENTAL 
CONGRESS 

1.  Peyton  Randolph  of  Virginia     .          Sfept.  5,  1774. 

2.  Henry  Middleton  of  South  Carolina 0^.22,1774. 

Peyton  Randolph May  10,  1775. 

3.  John  Hancock  of  Massachusetts May  24,  1775. 

4.  Henry  Laurens  of  South  Carolina Nov.  i,  1777. 

5.  John  Jay  of  New  York Dec.  10,  1778. 

6.  Samuel  Huntington  of  Connecticut Sept.  28,  1779. 

7.  Thomas  McKean  of  Delaware July  10,  1781. 

8.  John  Hanson  of  Maryland Nov.  5,  1781. 

9.  Elias  Boudinot  of  New  Jersey Nov.  4,  1782. 

10.  Thomas  Mifflin  of  Pennsylvania Nov.  3,  1783. 

11.  Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Virginia Nov.  30,  1784. 

12.  Nathaniel  Gorham  of  Massachusetts June  6,  1786. 

13.  Arthur  St.  Clair  of  Pennsylvania Feb.  2,  1787. 

14.  Cyrus  Grfffin  of  Virginia Jan.  22,  1788. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ADAMS,  HERBERT,  B.,  206. 
Adams,  John,  arrives  in  Paris,  21  ;  his  indig 
nation  at  the  pusillanimous  instructions  from 
Congress,  34  ;  condemns  the  Cincinnati, 
124 ;  tries  in  vain  to  negotiate  commercial 
treaty  with  Great  Britain,  143-146;  negoti 
ates  a  treaty  with  Holland,  160 ;  obtains  a 
loan  there,  161,  162;  his  interview  with  the 
envoy  from  Tripoli,  167;  absent  from  the 
United  States  at  the  time  of  the  Federal 
Convention,  242  ;  elected  vice-president  of 
the  United  States,  372 ;  portraits,  23,  42, 
163. 

Adams,  Samuel,  his  devotion  to  local  self-gov 
ernment,  57,  338 ;  his  committees  of  corre 
spondence,  95  ;  opposes  Washington's  pro 
posal  for  pensioning  officers,  112;  but  at 
length  supports  the  Commutation  Act,  119; 
condemns  the  Cincinnati,  124  ;  approves  the 
conduct  of  the  Massachusetts  delegates,  147  ; 
opposes  pardoning  the  ringleaders  in  the 
Shays  insurrection,  200 ;  not  a  delegate  to 
the  Federal  Convention,  242  ;  "  the  man  of 
the  town  meeting,"  338  ;  in  the  Massachu 
setts  convention,  344,  346,  348 ;  why  not  se 
lected  for  the  vice-presidency,  371  ;  por 
trait,  347. 

Albany,  riot  in,  362. 

Amendments  to  Constitution,  323,  351,  361. 

Ames,  Fisher,  339,  346,  371  ;  portrait,  340. 

Amis,  North  Carolinian  trader,  226. 

Amphiktyonic  council,  267. 

Annapolis  convention,  232 ;  view  of  state 
house,  233. 

Antagonisms  between  large  and  small  states, 
262-272  ;  between  east  and  west,  274 ;  be 
tween  north  and  south,  276-288. 

Antifederalist  party,  329;  in  Pennsylvania, 
330;  in  Massachusetts,  336,  337,  344;  in 
South  Carolina,  357;  in  Virginia,  357~36o; 
in  New  York,  362,  364,  370. 

Antipathies  between  states,  64. 

Aranda,  Count,  his  prophecy,  18;  portrait,  19. 

Aristides,  pseudonym,  332. 

Aristocracy,  302. 

Aristotle,  242. 

Arkwright,  Sir  Richard,  288= 

Armada,  the  Invincible,  253. 

Armchair,  view  and  story  of,  325. 

Armstrong,  John,  114,  156;  portrait,  155. 

Army,  dread  of,  109,  341,  342. 

Arnold,  Benedict,  27,  112,  157. 

Asbury,  Francis,  portrait,  87. 

Ashburton,  Lord,  6. 

Ashburton  treaty,  25. 

Assemblies,  67. 

Assunpink  Creek,  373. 

Augustine,  163. 

Backus,  Rev.  Isaac,  342. 

Bagehot,  Walter,  311. 

Baldwin,  Abraham,  270;  portrait,  269. 


Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  228. 
Baptists  persecuted  in  Virginia,  81. 
Barbary  pirates,  162-167= 
Barre,  Isaac,  40;  portrait,  41. 
Battery,  New  York,  view  from,  145. 
Bedford,  Gunning,  268 ;  portrait,  267. 
Bennington,  342. 
Bernard,  Sir  Francis,  318. 
Biennial  elections,  346. 
Bill  of  rights  demanded,  351. 
!  Blackstone,  Sir  William,  310,  311,  317. 
i  Blair,  John,  portrait,  309. 
'  Blount,  William,  portrait,  303. 
'  Boston  in  1790,  view  of,  335. 
Boston  Gazette,  quoted,  349. 
Boudinot,  Elias,  portrait,  100. 
Boundaries  of  United  States  as  settled  by  the 

treaty,  24. 

Bowdoin,  James,  148,  196-201,  339,  346;  por 
trait,  201  ;  facsimile  of  proclamation,  199. 
Bowen,  Jabez,  Washington's  letter  to,  370. 
Boyd,  Lieutenant,  128. 
Braddock,  Edward,  325. 
Bradshaw's  Railway  Guide,  182. 
Brearley,    David,   246,   264;   arms   and  auto 
graph,  265. 

Bribery,  charges  of,  349. 
British  army  departs,  50. 
British  Constitution  compared  with  American, 

310-318. 

Budget  for  1786,  facsimile  of,  107. 
j  Buff  and  blue  colours,  i . 
Burgesses,  House  of,  in  Virginia,  68. 
Burke,  ^danus,   124  ;  facsimile   title-page  of 

his  pamphlet,  123. 

Burke,  Edmund,  his  sympathy  with  the  Ameri 
cans,  2;  could  not  see  the  need  for  parlia 
mentary  reform,  6 ;  his  invective  against 
Shelburne,  17;  on  the  slave-trade,  74 ;  por- 
trat,  73. 
Butler,  Pierce,  277;  portrait,  278. 

Cabinet,  the  president's,  320. 

Cabinet  government,  growth  of,  in  England, 

3r6. 

Camden,  Lord,  6. 

Campus  Martius,  Marietta,  223,  225. 
Canada,  Franklin  suggests  that  it  should  be 

ceded  to  the  United  States,  9,  15. 
Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  50,  137. 
Carlisle,  Pa.,  disturbances  at,  335. 
Carpet-bag  governments,  291.' 
Carr.  Dabney,  95- 
Carrington,  Edward,  218,  328. 
Carroll,  Daniel,  246;  portrait,  301. 
Carroll,  John,  archbishop,  portrait,  89. 
Carrying  trade,  168,  282. 
Cartwright,  Edmund,  288. 
Catalonian  rebels  indemnified,  28. 
Catholics  in  the  United  States,  88. 
Cato,  pseudonym,  332. 
Cavendish,  Lord  John,  6,  16. 


39° 


INDEX 


Censors,  council  of,  in  Pennsylvania,  156. 

Centinel,  pseudonym,  333. 

Cervantes,  Miguel  de,  164. 

Charles  II.,  28. 

Chase,  Samuel,  355. 

Chatham,  Lord,  4. 

Cherry  Valley,  128. 

Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal,  228. 

Chittenden,  Thomas,  157;  portrait,  159. 

Cincinnati,  order  of  the,  120-125  ?  badge  of, 
122. 

Cincinnati,  the  city,  original  name  of,  212. 

Cincinnatus,  pseudonym,  332. 

Clan  system,  64. 

Clergymen  in  the  Massachusetts  convention, 
339  ;  their  liberal  spirit,  342. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  his  tariff  message,  315. 

Clinton,  George,  favours  persecution  of  Tories,  j 
129  ;  an  enemy  to  closer  union  of  the  states,  ; 
150;    defeats  impost  amendment,  237;    op 
poses  the  Constitution,  363  ;  entertains  Presi 
dent  Washington  at  dinner,  374;  portraits, 
149,  363. 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  149. 

Clymer,  George,  330 ;  portrait,  331. 

Coalition  ministry,  36-44. 

Cceur-de-Lion  and  Saladin,  167. 

Coinage,  172. 

Coins  in  circulation,  specimens  of,  169;  scales 
for  weighing,  177. 

Coke,  Thomas,  87. 

Columbia  College,  131. 

Commerce,  control  of,  given  to  Congress,  282. 

Common  law  in  the  United  States,  70. 

Commons,  House  of,  in  England,  70,  310-317;  j 
in  North  Carolina,  67. 

Compromises  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  269-  ! 
289. 

Confederation,  articles  of,  94-102. 

Congress,  Continental,  its  instructions  to  the 
commissioners  at  Paris,  34 ;  its  weakness,  57,  I 
101,  102,  106-118,  252;  its  anomalous  char-  i 
acter,  95;   its  presidents,   99;   driven   from  ' 
Philadelphia  by  drunken  soldiers,  118;  flees  i 
to  Princeton,  118  ;  unable  to  enforce  the  pro 
visions  of  the  treaty,  126-136,  160 ;  unable  to 
regulate  commerce,  144-148  ;  afraid  to  inter 
fere    openly  in   the    Shays  rebellion,   201  ; 
passes  ordinance  for  government  of  north 
western  territory,  216-221 ;  refuses  to  recom 
mend  a  convention  for  reforming  the  govern 
ment,  234;    reconsiders  its  refusal,  238;   in 
some  respects  a  diplomatic  rather  than  a  leg 
islative  body,  256;  its  migrations,  293,  327;  I 
debates  on  the  Constitution,  328  ;  submits  it 
to  the  states,  328  ;  comes  to  an  end,  370. 

Congress,  Federal,  powers  granted  to,  292; 
choice  of  president  by,  301-304  ;  counting 
electoral  votes  in,  304,  305,  309. 

Connecticut,  government  of,  67  ;  quarrels  with 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  150-157 ;  keeps 
almost  entirely  clear  of  paper  money,  182  ; 
western  claims  of,  205,  208  ;  ratifies  the  Con 
stitution,  336. 

Connecticut  compromise,  the,  269-274. 

Connecticut  settlements  in  Pennsylvania,  map,  ! 

Conservative  character  of  the  American  Revo-  | 

lution,  66. 
Constitution,    emblematic    federal    ship,   362, 

369- 

Convention,  the  Federal,  160,  239-326. 
Conway,  Gen.  Henry,  6. 
Cooper,  Dr.  Myles,  132. 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  21,  50,  373. 


Council,  privy,  320. 

Cowardice  of  American  politicians,  250. 
Crawford,  William,  50. 
Curtis,  B.  R.,  297. 

Cutler,  Manasseh,  218;  portrait,  219;  view  of 
his  birthplace,  220. 

Dane,  Nathan,  218,  233,  328;  portrait,  234. 

Dayton,  Jonathan,  241,  246;  portrait,  241. 

Debt,  imprisonment  for,  185. 

Debts  to  British  creditors,  26,  137. 

Delaware,  government  of,  67 ;  ratifies  the  Con 
stitution,  334. 

Democratic-Republican  party,  329. 

Dickinson,  John,  96,  118,  246,  260,  261,  301, 
303,  321,  332;  portrait,  95;  facsimile  of  let 
ter  by,  235. 

Dissolution  of  Parliament,  317. 

Dollar,  the  Spanish,  172. 

Dunmore,  Lord,  318. 

Election  by  lot,  301  ;   first  presidential,  370- 

372- 
Electoral    college    in   Maryland,   68 ;    device 

adopted  for  choosing  the  president,  300-308 ; 

its  practical  working,  308. 
Elliot,  Sir  Gilbert,  2. 
Ellsworth,  Oliver,  246,  267,  269,  289,  291,  295, 

297,  300,  321 ;  portrait,  268. 
Embargo  acts,  146. 
Eminent  domain,  209. 
Episcopal  church,  79-86. 
Erie  Canal,  228,  246. 
Executive,  federal,  260,  298 ;  length  of  term, 

299 ;  how  elected,  299-305  ;  corresponds  to 

sovereign,  not  to  prime  minister,  310,  320. 
Exports  not  to  be  taxed,  284,  292. 

"  Federal,"  the  word  preferred  to  "  national," 
273- 

Federal  city  under  federal  jurisdiction,  293,  341. 

"  Federal  Farmer  "  (letters  by  R.  H.  Lee),  333. 

Federal  Street  in  Boston,  354;  view  of  the 
meeting-house,  354. 

"  Federalist,"  the,  242,  365,  366. 

Federalist  party,  256,  329. 

Field,  S.  J.,296. 

Fisheries,  question  of,  20,  25,  35,  144,  168. 

Fitch,  John,  autograph,  60 ;  his  steamboats, 
61,  67. 

Fitzherbert,  Alleyne,  21,  44. 

Florida  surrendered  by  Great  Britain  to  Spain, 
35  ;  disputes  about  boundary  of,  224. 

Folkland,  203,  222. 

Fox,  C.  J.,  his  sympathy  with  the  Americans, 
i ;  quarrels  with  Shelburne,  6,  14 ;  resigns, 
15;  waywardness  of  his  early  career,  16  ;  co 
alition  with  North,  36-41  ;  mistake  in  oppos 
ing  a  dissolution,  47  ;  portrait  of,  7;  carica 
tures  of,  3,  13,  39. 

France,  treaty  of  1783  with  Great  Britain,  35. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  negotiates  with  Oswald, 
9 ;  overruled  by  Jay  and  Adams,  22 ;  his 
arguments  against  compensating  the  loyal 
ists,  28;  ridicules  the  Cincinnati,  122;  re 
turns  from  France,  143  ;  in  the  Federal  Con 
vention,  242,  269,  298,  321,  323, 325  ;  lays  the 
Constitution  before  the  Pennsylvania  legis 
lature,  327 ;  called  a  dotard  by  the  Antifeder- 
alists,  333  ;  portraits,  29,  42,  328. 

Franklin,  W.  T.,  portrait,  42. 

Franklin,  state  of,  214,  224  ;  map,  212. 

Fraunces's  Tavern,  52. 

Frederick  the  Great,  on  republics,  60- 

Free  trade,  4,  139-144. 


INDEX 


391 


French  army  embarks  at  Boston,  50. 

Froissart,  158. 

Frontier  posts   to  be   surrendered  by   Great 

Britain,  52  ;  why  not  surrendered,  157. 
Fugitive  slaves,  221,  288,  356. 
Fur  trade,  137,  171. 

Gadsden,  C.,  128,  356. 

Gallatin,  A.,  131,  139. 

Galloway,  Joseph,  266. 

Gardoqui,  Diego,  225  ;  portrait,  227. 

Gates,  Horatio,  114-116,  196;  portrait,  115. 

George  III.  threatens  to  abdicate,  4;  his  dis 
gust  at  the  coalition,  43  ;  rebuked  by  House 
of  Commons,  46;  his  personal  government 
overthrown,  48;  hopes  the  Americans  will 
repent  ot  their  folly,  60,  145 ;  resists  the 
movement  for  abolishing  slave-trade,  74  ;  his 
personal  government,  317;  portrait  of,  45; 
caricature  of,  3. 

Georgia  takes  the  lead  in  making  the  judiciary 
elective,  71 ;  abandons  that  evil  practice,  71 ; 
issues  paper  money,  178;  ratifies  the  Con 
stitution,  336. 

Germain,  Lord  George,  37. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  125,  247,  261,  270,  272,  275, 
290,  299,  302,  320,  324,  350,  371;  portrait, 
271 ;  view  of  his  house  at  Cambridge,  273. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  36,  38  ;  portrait,  35. 

Gibraltar,  17,  34. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  240,  312,  314. 

Gorham,  Nathaniel,  272,  339;  portrait,  103. 

Governors,  colonial,  unpopularity  of,  68. 

Gower,  Lord,  43. 

Grafton,  Duke  of,  6. 

Grantham,  Lord,  16. 

Granville,  Lord,  314. 

Grasse,  Count,  defeated  by  Rodney,  12,  14. 

Grayson,  William,  167,  221;  autograph,  168. 

Green  Dragon  tavern,  348. 

Greene,  Nathanael,  97,  106,  113,  124,  128,  242. 

Grenville,  Thomas,  10;  portrait,  n. 

Griffin,  Cyrus,  portrait,  105. 

Guaclaloupe,  34. 

Guilford,  Earl  of,  43. 

Gunston  Hall,  Va.,  view  of,  289. 

Guy  Vaux,  satirical  print,  3. 

Half-pay  controversy,  112. 

Hamilto'n,  Alexander,  his  early  life,  130-132; 
attacks  the  Trespass  Act,  134;  calls  for  a 
federal  convention,  233  ;  advocates  the  im 
post  amendment,  237 ;  in  the  Federal  Con 
vention,  242,  244,  261,  263,  265,  267,  274, 
299,  324;  on  inconvertible  paper,  295;  on 
the  electoral  college,  307  ;  called  a  boy  by 
the  Antifederalists,  333 ;  authorship  of  the 
"  Federalist,"  365-367  ;  supports  the  Con 
stitution  in  the  New  York  convention,  367, 
368;  his  financial  measures,  373;  portraits, 
126,  133,  365  ;  bearer  of  ship  of  state,  369. 

Hancock,  John,  108,200,338,  340,  351 ;  por 
trait,  337  ;  facsimile  of  letter  by,  352,  353. 

Hannibal,  163. 

Hanson,  John,  portrait,  99. 

Hargreaves,  James,  288. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  359;  portrait,  357. 

Harrington,  Lord,  314. 

Hartley,  David,  44. 

Hawks,  F.  L.,83. 

Heath,  Gen.  William,  339. 

Henry,  Patrick,  80,  242,  358,  359,  371- 

Hint  Club,  178. 

Impost  amendment,  235-259. 


I  Independence  Hall,  views  of,  119,  143,  239. 

|  India  bill,  46. 

I  Insurrections,  suppression  of,  290. 

Intercitizenship,  97. 

Iroquois  league,  205. 

Irreconcilables  in  the  Federal  Convention,  243, 
260,  262,  264,  274. 

Isolation  of  states  a  century  ago,  64. 

Jackson,  William,  portrait,  253. 

Jay,  John,  thwarts  Vergennes,  20,  21,  34;  tries 
to  establish  free  trade  between  United  States 
and  Great  Britain,  26;  condemns  persecu 
tion  of  Tories,  128;  on  compensation  for 
slaves,  137  ;  consents  to  the  closing  of  the 
Mississippi  River  for  twenty-five  years  226  ; 
why  not  sent  as  delegate  to  Federal  Conven 
tion,  243  ;  supports  the  Constitution  in  New 
York  convention,  364;  contributes  articles 
to  the  "  Federalist,"  365  ;  receives  nine  elec 
toral  votes  for  the  vice-presidency,  372  ;  por 
traits,  26,  42. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  opposed  to  slavery,  74; 
favours  religious  freedom,  82  ;  minister  to 
France,  143,  160;  assists  Gouverneur  Morris 
in  arranging  our  decimal  currency,  172  ;  his 
plan  for  the  government  of  the  northwestern 
territory,  210;  wishes  to  prohibit  slavery  in 
the  national  domain,  212,  220;  his  purchase 
of  Louisiana,  222  ;  absent  from  United  States 
at  the  time  of  the  Federal  Convention,  242  ; 
his  faith  in  the  people.  243,  348; 'his  opin 
ion  of  the  Constitution,  329 ;  approves  the  ac 
tion  of  the  Massachusetts  convention,  351  ; 
portrait,  204 ;  map  of  his  proposed  states, 

211. 

Jenifer,  D.,  portrait,  313. 
ohnson,  W.  S.,  246  ;  portrait,  247. 
ones,  Paul,  362. 

ionesborough,  convention  at,  214. 
udiciary,  elective,  71;  federal,  260,  321,  322. 
uilliard  vs.  Greenman,  296. 

Kentucky,  18,  204,  213,  216,  224,  226. 

Keppel,  Lord,  6,  16,  44. 

King,  Rufus,  233,  238,  246,  264,  267,  269,  275, 

281,  297,  299,  302,  344,  346;  portrait,  237. 
King's  Mountain,  27,  214,  342. 
Kings,  election  of,  in  Poland,  299. 
Know  Ye  certificate,  facsimile  of,  191. 
Know  Ye  men  and  Know  Ye  measures,  190, 

261. 
Knox,  Henry,  120. 

Lafayette,  50,  54. 

Langdon,  John,  246,  290,  291,  295,  297,  303, 

371  ;  portrait,  291. 
Lansing,  John,  243,  246,  260,  263,  273,  364,  365; 

portrait,  243. 

Laurens,  Henry,  2,  21 ;  portrait,  42. 
Lecky,  W.,  106. 
Ledyard,  Isaac,  135. 
Lee,  Henry,  328,  360. 
Lee,  Richard    Henry,  57,   147,  218,  221,  242, 

327,  333.  338.  35°,  359,  37 1- 
"  Letters  from  a  Federal  Farmer,"  by  R.  ti. 

Lee,  333. 

Lexington,  50,  342. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  74,  212,  222. 
Lincoln,  Benjamin,  196,  198,  339,  355. 
Livingston,   Robert,   34,   364,   375  ;    portrait, 

Livingston,  William,  181,  246;  portrait,  261. 
j  Locke,  John,  66,  242. 
j  Long  Lane  becomes  Federal  Street,  354. 


392 


INDEX 


Long  Parliament,  95,  253. 

Lords,  House  of,  68,  70 ;  contrasted  with  Sen 
ate,  315. 

Lottery  ticket,  facsimile  of,  141. 

Lowndes,  Rawlins,  355,  356. 

Loyalists,  compensation  of,  27-31  ;  persecution 
of,  126-136  ;  did  not  form,  in  any  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  an  opposition  party,  329. 

Luzerne,  Chevalier  de,  34,  54. 

Lykian  League,  267. 

Macdougall,  Alexander,  113. 

McDuffie,  George,  62. 

McKean,  Thomas,  335  ;  portrait,  97. 

Madison,  James,  and  the  Religious  Freedom 
Act,  82  ;  on  right  of  coercion,  103  ;  advocates 
five  per  cent,  impost,  108;  on  the  ordinance 
of  1787,  221 ;  moves  that  a  convention  be 
held  to  secure  a  uniform  commercial  policy, 
230 ;  succeeds  in  getting  delegates  appointed, 
238 ;  his  character  and  appearance,  244, 245  ; 
his  journal  of  the  proceedings,  248;  chief 
author  of  the  Virginia  plan,  251,  289;  one  of 
the  first  to  arrive  at  the  fundamental  concep 
tion  of  our  partly  federal  and  partly  national 
government,  258  ;  approves  at  first  of  giving 
Congress  the  power  to  annul  state  laws,  259 ; 
opposes  the  New  Jersey  plan,  264  ;  declares 
that  the  real  antagonism  is  between  slave 
states  and  free  states,  267, 276  ;  author  of  the 
three  fifths  compromise,  280 ;  condemns 
paper  money,  296 ;  disapproves  of  election 
of  the  executive  by  the  legislature,  299  ;  ap 
proves  of  a  privy  council,  321 ;  supports  the 
Constitution  in  Congress,  328  ;  called  a  boy 
by  the  Antifederalists,  333 ;  supports  the 
Constitution  in  the  Virginia  convention,  360  ; 
part  author  of  the  "  Federalist,"  365,  366; 
denies  that  there  can  be  a  constitutional  right 
of  secession,  368  ;  portraits  of,  frontispiece, 
245,  248. 

Maine  as  part  of  Massachusetts,  336. 

Manchester,  Duke  of,  44. 

Marbois,  Frangois  de  Barbe,  21,  34. 

Marion,  Francis,  128. 

Marshall,  John,  84,  297,  322,  360;  portrait, 
360. 

Martin,  Luther,  247,  260-262,  264,  267,  269, 
274,  296,  355  ;  portrait,  275. 

Maryland,  government  of,  67;  insists  upon 
cession  of  northwestern  lands,  96,  207,  209; 
paper  money  in,  181  ;  message  to  Virginia, 
230;  ratifies  the  Constitution,  355. 

Mason,  George,  247,  261,  271,  283,  284,  296- 
299,  301,  302,  321,  324,  357,  359;  portrait, 
284 ;  view  of  his  house,  289. 

Massachusetts,  government  of,  69 ;  abolishes 
slavery,  77;  religious  bigotry,  78;  on  the 
five  per  cent,  duty,  108 ;  tries  to  propose  a 
convention  for  increasing  the  powers  of 
Congress,  146;  lays  claim  to  a  small  part  of 
Vermont,  158 ;  paper  money  in,  182-192  ; 
western  claims  of,  204;  changes  her  attitude, 
238  ;  local  self-government  in,  336  ;  debates 
on  the  Constitution,  340-351  ;  ratifies  it, 
suggesting  amendments,  351. 

"  Massachusetts  Chronicle,"  quoted,  127. 

"  Massachusetts  Spy,"  facsimile  page  of,  173. 

Massacre,  Boston,  342. 

Mayhew,  Jonathan,  95. 

Meade,  William,  80,  84. 

Mentor  and  Phocion,  134. 

Mercer,  J.  F.,  295. 

Merchants'  Exchange,  New  York,  71. 

Methodists,  86. 


Middletown  convention,  118;  old  view  from 
Hartford  road,  121. 

Mifflin,  Thomas,  portrait,  53. 

Minisink,  128. 

Mirabeau,  Count  de,  124. 

Mississippi  River,  attempt  to  close  it,  224- 
226,  357  ;  valley  of  the,  17,  204. 

Monroe,  James,  231. 

Montesquieu,  C.,  242    311. 

Moonshiners,  356. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  113,  172,  246,  260,  270, 
281,  283,  290,  294,  297,  299,  301,  323;  por 
trait,  307. 

Morris,  Robert,   113,  174,  246,  332;  portrait, 

Moultrie,  William,  148,  356. 
Mount  Vernon,  view  of,  55. 
Muley,  Ismail,  164  ;  facsimile  title-page  of  his 
tory  of  his  reign,  165. 
Mutiny  act,  341. 

Names  of  persons  and  places,  fashions  in,  210- 

212. 

Nantucket,  170. 

Nason,  Samuel,  342. 

Naval  eminence  of  New  England,  20,  143. 

Navigation  acts,  142-148,  171. 

Negroes  carried  away  by  British  fleet,  137. 

Nelson,  Samuel,  297. 

New  Connecticut,  157. 

New  Hampshire  lays  claim  to  Vermont,  157, 
158;  riots  in,  198;  hesitates  to  ratify  the 
Constitution,  355  ;  ratifies  it,  361. 

New  Jersey  quarrels  with  New  York,  152  ; 
paper  money  in,  181 ;  opposes  the  attempt 
to  close  the  Mississippi,  227  ;  instructs  her 
delegates  to  the  Annapolis  convention,  232  ; 
her  plan  for  amending  the  articles  of  confed 
eration,  264;  ratifies  the  Constitution,  334. 

New  Roof,  361. 

New  York  passes  navigation  and  tariff  acts 
directed  against  neighbouring  states,  150; 
lays  claim  to  Vermont,  157,  158;  paper 
money  in,  181 ;  western  claims  of,  206-208  ; 
defeats  the  impost  amendment,  235-237; 
debates  on  the  Constitution,  362-368;  rati 
fies  it,  368 ;  asks  for  a  second  convention, 
369  ;  fails  to  choose  electors,  370. 

New  York,  plan  of  the  city,  no,  in. 

New  York  Central  Railroad,  228. 

Newburgh  address,  113,  117,  125. 

Nicola,  Louis,  his  letter  to  Washington,  112, 
125. 

Ninth  Pillar  erected,  361. 

Non-importation  agreement,  146. 

North,  Frederick,  Lord,  fall  of  his  ministry, 
i ;  coalition  with  Fox,  36-40  ;  his  blindness, 
40;  his  proposals  after  Saratoga,  94;  his 
subservience  to  the  king,  317;  caricatures 
of,  37>  39- 

North  Carolina  issues  paper  money,  178  ; 
cedes  her  western  lands  to  the  United 
States,  213  ;  repeals  the  act  of  cession,  214; 
delays  her  ratification  of  the  Constitution, 
369- 

Ohio,  217-221. 

Old  Sarum,  267. 

Old  South  Church,  342. 

Onslow,  George,  2. 

Ordinance  of  1787,  213,  216-221. 

Oregon,  62. 

Oswald,  Richard,  9-12,  15,  21-25,  31,  44. 

Paine,  Thomas,  50,  56,  206;  portrait,  51. 


INDEX 


393 


Paper  currency,  170-195,  220,  234,  294-297; 
specimens  of,  175-194. 

Parade  in  New  York,  369. 

Parker,  Theodore,  284. 

Parsons,  Samuel  Holden,  217. 

Parsons,  Theophilus,  339,  346  ;  portrait,  339. 

Parties,  formation  of,  328. 

Paterson,  William,  246,  263-266,  274,  278,  296  ; 
portrait,  263. 

Patterson,  militia  officer  in  Wyoming,  154. 

Payson,  Rev.  Philip,  342. 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  portrait,  359. 

Pennsylvania,  government  of,  67  ;  first  tariff 
act,  146;  quarrels  with  Connecticut,  152- 
156;  paper  money  in,  181 ;  opposes  the  clos 
ing  of  the  Mississippi,  227;  contest  over  the 
Constitution,  329-334;  ratifies  it,  334. 

Petersham,  scene  of  Shay's  defeat,  197,  340 ; 
view  of  house  where  he  was  captured,  197. 

Philadelphia,  Congress  driven  from,  118; 
Federal  Convention  meets  at,  239;  unpar 
liamentary  proceedings  in  legislature,  330; 
celebrates  ratification  by  ten  states,  362. 

Phocion  and  Mentor,  134. 

Pierce,  William,  autograph,  315. 

Pinckney,  Charles,  246,  261,  281,  284,288,  290, 
297,  298,  356;  portrait,  285  ;  facsimile  of  let 
ter  by,  286,  287. 

Pinckney,  Cotesworth,  246,  261,  277,  281,  282, 
284,  288,  297,  355,  356;  portrait,  283. 

Pitt,  Thomas,  42. 

Pitt,  William,   chancellor  of  exchequer,    16  ; 

j,       denounces  the   coalition,   37 ;    defends  the 

'     treaty,  42 ;  refuses  to  form  a  ministry,  42 ; 

character,  46,  47  ;  prime  minister,  47 ;  wins 

a  great   political    victory,  48 ;   favours  free 

trade  with  the  United  States,  141 ;  portrait, 

Pohick  parish  church,  83. 
Polish  kings,  election  of,  299. 
Population  as  an  index  of  wealth,  276. 
Portland,  Duke  of,  16,  44. 
Potomac,  navigation  of,  229-232. 
Poughkeepsie,   convention   at,    363-368  ;    old 

view  of,  364. 

Powers  granted  to  federal  government,  290. 
Presbyterians,  82,  88. 
Presidents  of  Continental  Congress,  99. 
Prevost's  march  against  Charleston,  26. 
Prime  minister  contrasted  with  president,  312- 

Primogeniture,  abolition  of,  73. 
Proprietary  governments,  67,  73. 
Providence,  R.  I.,  barbecue  and  mob  at,  362. 
Public  lands,  203. 
Putnam,  Israel,  157. 

Putnam,  Rufus,  216;  portrait,  217;  his  house 
at  Rutland,  218. 

§uebec  act,  18. 
uesnay,  Frangois,  146. 
uorum,  how  to  make  a,  332. 

Railroads,  political  influence  of,  62. 
Randolph,   Edmund,   247,  251,  254,  258,  260, 
265,  284,  291,  296,  298,  302,  321,  324,358. 


360;  portrait,  255. 

"    ,    "      Al 
93- 


Rattlesnake,  the  American,  a  satirical  print, 


Rayneval,  Gerard  de,  21. 
Read,  George,  260,  295  ;  portrait,  295. 
Reform,  parliamentary,  6. 
Religious  freedom,  progress  in,  78-88. 
Religious    tests    opposed    by    Massachusetts 
clergymen,  342. 


Representation  of  slaves,  277-282. 

Representatives,  House  of,  255,  272. 

Republican  party,  256. 

Republics,  old  notion  that  they  must  be  small 
in  area,  60. 

Reserve,  Connecticut's  western,  208. 

Revenue  bills,  292. 

Revere,  Paul,  348;  portrait,  349. 
1  Revolution,  American,  its  conservative  char 
acter,  66  ;  the  French,  66,  125. 
!  Rhode    Island,   government   of,   67 ;    extends 
franchise  to  Catholics,  79 ;  on  the  five  per 
cent,  duty,  109;  paper  money  in,  182-190; 
opposes  the  closing  of  the  Mississippi,  227  ; 
does    not   send   delegates   to   Philadelphia, 
239  ;  delays  her  ratification  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  369. 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  i,  16. 
j  Rittenhouse,  David,  116. 

I  Rockingham,  Marquis  of,  4;  instability  of  his 
ministry,  5  ;  its  excellent  work,  7  ;  his  death, 
1 6. 

Rodney's  victory  over  Grasse,  14 ;  satirical 
print,  13. 

Roman  republic  not  like  the  United  States, 
60. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  66,  124. 

Rutgers,  Elizabeth,  132. 

Rutledge,  John,  246,  261,  280,  284,  298,  299, 
301,  321,  356;  portrait,  279. 

St.  Clair,  Arthur,  212,  221. 

St.  Croix  boundary  monument,  25. 

Saladin  and  Cceur-de-Lion,  167. 

Sandy  Hook  light-house,  152. 

Sargent,  Winthrop,  218. 

Scales  for  weighing  coins,  177. 
[  Schuyler,  Philip,  132,  150,  157,  207. 
i  Scott,  Sir  Walter,  158. 

Scottish  representation  in  Parliament,  267. 

Seabury,  Samuel,  portrait,  85. 

Secession,  threats  of,  226,  234  ;  no  constitu 
tional  right  of,  368. 

Secrecy  of  the  debates  in  Federal  Convention, 
249. 

Sedgwick,  Theodore,  128,  339. 

Self-government,  57,64,  90. 

Senate,  federal,  made  independent  of  lower 
house,  272  ;  contrasted  with  House  of  Lords, 

Senates,  origin  of,  68. 

Seven  Years'  War,  14,  204. 

Sevier,  John,  214;  portrait,  215. 

Shattuck,  Job,  195. 
|  Shays  rebellion,  196,  197,   234,   261,  336,  340, 

344- 

j  Sheffield,  Lord,  protectionist,  141 ;  on  the 
Barbary  pirates,  166. 

Shelburne,  William,  Earl  of,  his  character,  4; 
his  memorandum  on  proposed  cession  of 
Canada,  u;  prime  minister,  16;  approached 
by  Rayneval  and  Vaughan,  21  ;  misjudged 
by  Fox,  38  ;  defends  the  treaty,  42 ;  resigns, 
42  ;  his  conduct  justified  by  his  enemies, 
44 ;  understood  the  principles  of  free  trade, 
4,  139;  portrait  of,  5. 

Shepard,  William,  196. 

Sherman,  Roger,  246,  261,  269,  275,  289,  295, 
297,  299,  303,  326,  333  ;  his  suggestion  as  to 
relations  of  the  executive  to  the  legislature, 
299,  300,  318;  portrait,  298. 

Shillings,  172. 

Ship-building  in  New  England,  141-144. 

Shute,  Rev.  Daniel,  342. 

Sidney.  Algernon,  66. 


394 


INDEX 


Signatures  to  the  Constitution,  facsimile  of, 
322. 

Singletary,  Amos,  342,  344,  345. 

Six  Nations,  205,  217. 

Slave-trade,  foreign,  permitted  for  twenty 
years,  283,  343,  355- 

Slavery  in  the  several  states,  74-77,  288 ;  pro 
hibited  in  northwestern  territory,  221  ;  dis 
cussions  about  it  in  Federal  Convention, 
277-290;  condemned  by  George  Mason, 
284. 

Slaves,  representation  of,  277-281  ;  numbers 
of,  in  the  several  states,  288. 

Small  states  converted  to  federalism  by  the 
Connecticut  compromise,  274,  334. 

Smith,  Adam,  131,  139,  140. 

Smith,  Capt.  John,  206. 

Smith,  Jonathan,  344-346;  view  of  his  tomb,  | 
345 ;  autograph,  346. 

Smith,  Melancton,  364,  368;  portrait,  367. 

Smugglers,  140. 

South  Carolina,  Episcopal  church  in,  79,  84 ; 
revokes  five  per  cent,  impost,  113;  issues 
paper  money,  178;  absolute  need  of  concili 
ating  her,  279,  280 ;  makes  bargain  with  New  [ 
England  states,  282-288  ;  debates  on  the  Con 
stitution,  355-357;  ratifies  it,  357. 

Sovereignty  never  belonged  to  separate  states, 
92. 

Spain,  treaty  of  1783  with  Great  Britain,  34; 
attempts  to  close  Mississippi  River,  223,226, 
234?  357- 

Spanish  claim  in  southwest,  map  of,  228. 

Spanish  dollar,  why  it  superseded  English 
pound  as  unit  of  value  in  America,  172. 

Spermaceti  oil,  144,  170. 

Springfield  arsenal,  196,  201. 

Stage-coach,  picture  of,  63. 

States,  powers  denied  to,  293. 

Stormont,  Lord,  44. 

Story,  Joseph,  297. 

Strachey,  Sir  Henry,  21. 

Strong,  Caleb,  246,  272,  299,  346;  portrait,  311. 

Succession  disputed,  309. 

Suffrage,  limitations  upon,  72. 

Sugar  trade,  142. 

Temple,  Lord,  43,  46. 

Tennessee,  18,  204,  213. 

Thayendanegea,  50. 

Thomas,  Isaiah,  172;  portrait,  171. 

Thompson,  Gen.,  in  Massachusetts  convention, 
344- 

Thurlow,  Lord,  6 ;  portrait,  75. 

Thurston,  member  of  Virginia  legislature,  148. 

Tithing-men  in  New  England,  78. 

Tobacco  as  currency  in  Virginia,  171. 

Tories,  American  ;  "see  Loyalists. 

Tories,  British,  40. 

Townshend,  Thomas,  16. 

Trade,  barbarous  superstitions  about,  139. 

Travelling,  difficulties  of,  a  century  ago,  62. 

Treaty  of  1783,  difficulties  in  the  way  of,  8; 
strange  character  of,  22 ;  provisions  of,  24- 
31  ;  a  great  diplomatic  victory  for  the  Ameri 
cans,  32,  204;  secret  article  relating  to  Flor 
ida  boundary,  31,  223;  adopted,  44;  news 
arrives  in  America,  50  ;  Congress  unable  to 
carry  out  its  provisions,  126-138,  160. 

Trespass  Act  in  New  York,  130-134. 

Trevett  vs.  Weeden,  189. 

Tucker,  Josiah,  58,  146. 

Tyler,  John,  the  elder,  230,  359;  portrait,  231. 

Union,  sentiment  of,  56. 


Unitarianism,  88. 

University  men  in  Federal  Convention,  242. 

Vaughan,  Benjamin,  21,  33. 

Vergennes,  Count  de,  12 ;  wishes  to  satisfy 
Spain  at  the  expense  of  the  United  States, 
17-20;  thwarted  by  Jay,  21;  accuses  the 
Americans  of  bad  faith,  31  ;  tired  of  sending 
loans,  108  ;  portrait,  30. 

Vermont,  troubles  in,  156-158 ;  riots  in  connec 
tion  with  the  Shays  rebellion,  198. 

Vice-presidency,  302. 

Victoria,  Queen,  314. 

Vincennes,  riot  in,  226. 

Violence  of  political  invective,  37. 

Virginia,  church  and  state  in,  79-84  ;  on  five 
per  cent,  impost,  109;  paper  money  in,  178  ; 
takes  possession  of  northwestern  territory, 
204-206  ;  cedes  it  to  the  United  States,  260 ; 
plan  for  new  federal  government,  251-260 ; 
its  reception  by  the  convention,  260 ;  compro 
mise  as  to  representation  of  slaves,  278-281 ; 
resents  compromise  between  South  Carolina 
and  the  New  England  states,  284;  debates 
on  the  Constitution,  357-360;  ratifies  it,  360. 

"  Visionary  young  men,"  /.  e.,  Hamilton,  Mad 
ison,  Gouverneur  Morris,  etc.,  338. 

Waddington,  Joshua,  132. 

Wall  Street,  old  view  in,  69. 

Walpole,  Horace,  16. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  316. 

War,  the  Civil,  56,  276,  282;  contrast  with  4 
Revolutionary,  104-108  ;  cost  of  Revolution-  ' 
ary,  174. 

Washington,  George,  marches  from  Yorktown 
to  the  Hudson  River,  50 ;  disbands  the  army, 
51  ;  resigns  his  command,  53  ;  goes  home  to 
Mount  Vernon,  54;  his  "  legacy :'  to  the 
American  people,  55 ;  on  the  right  of  coer 
cion,  100  ;  urges  half-pay  for  retired  officers, 
112  ;  supposed  scheme  for  making  him  king, 
112  ;  his  masterly  speech  at  Newburgh,  115  ; 
president  of  the  Cincinnati,  120;  on  the  weak 
ness  of  the  confederation,  168 ;  wishes  to 
hang  speculators  in  breadstuff s,  170;  disap 
proves  of  Connecticut's  reservation  of  a  tract 
of  western  land,  208 ;  approves  of  Ohio  Com 
pany,  217  ;  his  views  on  the  need  for  canals 
between  east  and  west,  228  ;  important  meet 
ing  held  at  his  house,  229 ;  is  chosen  delegate 
to  the  Federal  Convention.  238 ;  president  of 
the  convention,  247  ;  his  solemn  warning, 
250,  324  ;  his  suggestion  as  to  the  basis  of  rep 
resentation,  272  ;  asks  if  he  shall  put  the  ques 
tion  on  the  motion  of  Wilson  and  Pinckney, 
298  ;  disapproves  of  electing  executive  by  the 
legislature,  299;  sends  draft  of  the  Constitu 
tion  to  Congress,  327  ;  called  a  fool  by  the 
Antifederalists,  333 ;  approves  of  amend 
ments,  but  opposes  a  second  convention,  350 ; 
unanimously  chosen  president  of  the  United 
States,  370  ;  his  journey  to  New  York,  374  ; 
his  inauguration,  374  ;  Trumbull's  picture  of 
his  resignation,  56;  his  coach  and  four,  65; 
portraits,  78,  117,  251  ;  Cruikshank's  picture 
of  his  triumphal  journey,  372;  Darley's  pic 
ture  of  his  inauguration,  374;  facsimile  of 
letter  by,  370. 

Washington,  William,  356. 

Watson,  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  84. 

Watt,  James,  61,  288. 

Wayne,  Anthony,  50. 

Wealth  as  a  basis  of  representation,  276. 

Webster,  Daniel,  56,  221,  297. 


INDEX 


395 


Webster,  Pelatiah,  104,  240. 

Weems,  Mason,  84. 

Wesley,  John,  86. 

West,  Rev.  Samuel,  343  ;  silhouette,  343. 

West  India  trade,  142,  171. 

Whigs,  British,  sympathize  with  revolutionary 

party  in  America,  2. 

Whiskey  as  currency  in  North  Carolina,  171. 
White,  Abraham,  344. 
Whitefield,  George,  86. 
Whitehill,  Robert,  333. 
Whitney,  Eli,  288. 
Williamson,  Hugh,  portrait,  305. 
Wilson,  James,  246,  261,  264,  266,  270,  281, 


295,  298,  299,  301,  302,  321,  333,  335;  por 
trait,  332. 

Witenagemot,  68. 

Wolf  Creek  Mills,  Ohio,  222. 

Worcester,  street  view  in,  195. 

Worcester  Spy,  172. 

Wraxall's  Memoirs,  i. 

Wyoming,  troubles  in,  152-156;  bird;s-eye 
view  of,  151. 

Wythe,  George,  246 ;  portrait,  257. 

Yates,   Robert,  243,  260,  263,  273,  364,  365; 

autograph,  276. 
Yazoo  boundary,  31,  224. 


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